Iraq Isn't Like Vietnam -- Except When It Is

[SWJED]

20 May Washington Post - Iraq Isn't Like Vietnam -- Except When It Is by Robert Dallek.

These days, it's not terribly original to say that the Iraq war is like the Vietnam War. Many doves use the comparison lazily, invoking Vietnam to urge the United States to pull out. Like most historical analogies, it's a pretty inexact one. (For one thing, Vietnam began as a guerrilla war and ended as a conventional one, while Iraq began as a conventional fight and degenerated into an insurgency.) But having studied President Lyndon B. Johnson's descent into the Vietnam abyss, and having just spent several years poring over Vietnam-era papers and tapes from President Richard M. Nixon and Henry Kissinger, I've found that some of the parallels sound disturbingly familiar today. They're not perfect, but they're instructive -- and give us a disquieting sense of how hard it can be for policymakers to learn from history...

[Steve Blair]

This is similar to something board regulars may remember me expressing on numerous occasions....

The similarities between Iraq and Vietnam are not necessarily on the ground, but in the response of some of our institutions to those situations. To its eternal credit, the Army has been MUCH more responsive than it was during Vietnam, but our decision-making levels seem intent on making the same mistakes, right down to Congress possibly betraying yet another government we created and promised to support.

[Culpeper]

This is similar to something board regulars may remember me expressing on numerous occasions....

The similarities between Iraq and Vietnam are not necessarily on the ground, but in the response of some of our institutions to those situations. To its eternal credit, the Army has been MUCH more responsive than it was during Vietnam, but our decision-making levels seem intent on making the same mistakes, right down to Congress possibly betraying yet another government we created and promised to support.

Your posts on this matter has not gone unread. I'm beginning to see your point on this subject matter.

[carl]

The similarities between Iraq and Vietnam are not necessarily on the ground, but in the response of some of our institutions to those situations.

Culpeper:

I agree with you and Steve. Another institutional response I fear will be repeated was the unshakable determination to ignore the killing and the dying after we left.

[Culpeper]

Culpeper:

I agree with you and Steve. Another institutional response I fear will be repeated was the unshakable determination to ignore the killing and the dying after we left.

That is my biggest fear right now. That Congress will, in effect, create a massacre by trying to run the war from within D.C. This sort of massacre happened after Vietnam. It happened after the Gulf War. And will surely happen in Iraq.

Eagle:

I've never looked at the Southeast Asia conflict in that manner but you're correct. Most people didn't see that reform in neighboring regions during that period. Maybe we can't see this happening in much the same way in the Middle East. Too focused on the fighting in the present. I mean Libya changed her tune real quick. Syria is nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof. Iran is on the brink of some sort of change, and so forth.

[Sargent]

[QUOTE=Culpeper;16395]That is my biggest fear right now. That Congress will, in effect, create a massacre by trying to run the war from within D.C. This sort of massacre happened after Vietnam. It happened after the Gulf War. And will surely happen in Iraq.[QUOTE]


Wouldn't the Commander in Chief bear a large portion of that responsibility? In each of the cases cited, it was the President who made the decisions that led to a situation that Congress (ie, the people) ultimately found objectionable and not in American interests. If he is the one to decide to use military power, if he is the one to set the strategy, if he is the one to set the expectations for that strategy, and so forth, isn't he similarly responsible for the outcomes? If only in the current example, had OIF turned out to be a success, would anyone be running to give the credit to Congress for _supporting_ the President's policies? In at least the Vietnam and Iraq 2 cases, we are dealing with military interventions that American administrations unilaterally _chose_. If an administration chooses a conflict and does not even have a sensible strategy to maintain public support -- let alone achieve the policy objectives -- whose fault is that? Call me crazy, but I put the responsibility for that on the administration.

[Culpeper]

[QUOTE=Sargent;16403][QUOTE=Culpeper;16395]That is my biggest fear right now. That Congress will, in effect, create a massacre by trying to run the war from within D.C. This sort of massacre happened after Vietnam. It happened after the Gulf War. And will surely happen in Iraq.

Wouldn't the Commander in Chief bear a large portion of that responsibility? In each of the cases cited, it was the President who made the decisions that led to a situation that Congress (ie, the people) ultimately found objectionable and not in American interests. If he is the one to decide to use military power, if he is the one to set the strategy, if he is the one to set the expectations for that strategy, and so forth, isn't he similarly responsible for the outcomes? If only in the current example, had OIF turned out to be a success, would anyone be running to give the credit to Congress for _supporting_ the President's policies? In at least the Vietnam and Iraq 2 cases, we are dealing with military interventions that American administrations unilaterally _chose_. If an administration chooses a conflict and does not even have a sensible strategy to maintain public support -- let alone achieve the policy objectives -- whose fault is that? Call me crazy, but I put the responsibility for that on the administration.

There is a lot of "He's" in that statement. I'm seeing Congress setting a timetable that the CIC is finding not in the best interest of everything you stated is his responsibility. You are never going to find public support for going to war. Even the "America First Committee" which included Charles Lindbergh, objected to FDR declaring war against Nazi Germany.

Charles Lindbergh provided Americans with a portrait of the European war that differed substantially from the one conceived by the Roosevelt administration...

You can pick and choose and change the names around a little with the above quote and you will get something similar to your response and the Iraq War. But that don't make it right.

[Mike in Hilo]

Always sad to see those old misconceptions repeated ad infinitum--this time by Dallek. Blair has pointed out the real Iraq/VN similarity succinctly and well. On the other hand, a point by point rebuttal of Dallek would not leave much at all of the article intact. In this regard, Carl's responses to some key points have been spot on. The two cents I would throw in are to reference that 500 pound gorilla--Sure, two US Presidents felt the war was lost, as Dallek puts it: Both correctly recognized North Vietnamese irredentism as the driving force to the conflict and both (yes, even Nixon) felt a palpable fear of what the Soviets and/or Chinese would do if we hit North Vietnam hard enough to effect its strategic defeat....And so they held back, knowing that doing so insured that victory would elude the Allied side. (No similar situation in today's unipolar world.) Dallek's failure to mention this renders his claim about his extensive examination of pertinent VN War documents laughable--to me at least.

Cheers,
Mike.

[Sargent]

Two years ago David Kaiser (Naval War College) gave a lecture at the Army War College that compared the two wars. Perhaps the forum will find this over-view of the talk an instructive adjunct to Dallek's commentary. In brief, he came down to the same conclusion that Dallek starts with -- there is as much that is different as similar. Learning from the former to inform the latter requires a decent understanding the similarities and differences.

http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrow...BjCQ&user=&pw=

[carl]

Let's see, where do we start with Mr. Dallek's article.

First the "surge" isn't a fundamental change in the way the war is prosecuted, it is just a simple increase in the number of troops. Okay....

The ARVN couldn't and wouldn't fight. Didn't they provide all the ground combat forces that stopped the Easter Offensive in 1972?

The TET offensive showed VC strength. Well, yes it did. He doesn't mention that it also shattered that strength never to recover.

Ending the war in Vietnam enhanced the international credibility of the US. That is a bit inconsistant with my sad memories of the late 70's.

He forgot to make one last point about Vietnam. I'll make it for Mr. Dallek. The loss in Vietnam also resulted in the millions of innocent people losing their lives and in decades of misery for more millions. Since the point of his article is how things apply to Iraq, I think this thing applies most directly of all.

[Culpeper]

Carl:

My first gut reaction to the Iraq-Vietnam compare and contrast was much the same. But we are looking at the platform used to prosecute both conflicts. Not the size and magnitude differences.

The similarities between Iraq and Vietnam are not necessarily on the ground, but in the response of some of our institutions to those situations.

Yes, it is easy to state that the mere casualty rates and the intensity of fighting alone are so much lighter than Vietnam. I have stated the same thing more than once on these forums. Nevertheless, the similarities are the shortcomings that are currently costing lives whether we consider the casualty rate light or not. In that respect, the same mistakes are being made. And it is coming with an opportunity cost.

From an historical perspective, during the Civil War tens-of-thousands of lives in one day was not unusual. During WWI high casualties to achieve a worthless effort was considered acceptable just to find out if an planned offensive was worthwhile or not. During WWII thousands of casualties to take an island that was strategical useful for a short period was considered acceptable. During the Korean Conflict hundreds of casualties were acceptable to take a hill. Just to take the hill with no strategic value. In Vietnam, we ran into conventional warfare as well as counterinsurgency warfare. Nearly 60,000 KIA was not acceptable to America for a "police action". Iraq has turned into a police action counterinsurgency war. Today, the loss of two lives in a forward outpost platoon can be serious because we have, in the past, already lost too many American lives due to police action tactics that didn't work at one time. Overall, the problem is we are not looking that far back in time except for historic statistical purposes. So, today the loss of light casualties are having the same effect on moral as lets say, Hamburger Hill during that particular conflict. It is not because the troops are less aggressive or brave. It is just in this war there are not going to be any Hamburger Hills.

A tax auditor will have a hard time completing an application for a manufacturing tax credit because it is in the nature of the auditor to look for a liability against the taxpayer, when the purpose of the application is to enhance manufacturing in his area. A high ranking commander in Iraq may have a hard time with COIN decisions because it is in his nature to seek out and destroy the enemy with acceptable losses on three fronts; his troops, the enemy, and the population, which will have a negative impact when the actual goal is to enhance our image with the population. We can't do this with acceptable losses of troops and the general population. This is where some are missing the picture on Vietnam as I have in the past. In some places during the Vietnam Conflict the same mistakes are being made in Iraq overall. Not seeing the trees because of the forest. It takes a while to get over it.

[aktarian]

He forgot to make one last point about Vietnam. I'll make it for Mr. Dallek. The loss in Vietnam also resulted in the millions of innocent people losing their lives and in decades of misery for more millions. Since the point of his article is how things apply to Iraq, I think this thing applies most directly of all.

However it didn't result in domino theory spread of communism through Asia. So any prediction about what will happen to Iraq after US leaves (Aq gaining secure base, Iraq becoming new Taliban's Afghanistan and such) has to take that into account.

[Old Eagle]

Not ALL the dominoes fell.

Laos didn't go communist
Cambodia didn't go communist
Burma didn't go communist

oops

One of the most eloquent defenses of the Vietnam war I heard was one of the other SEAsian leaders explaining that the time from 1965-75 allowed the ASEAN countries enough time and outside resources to build strong enough institutions/economies to ward off communism. And, as I posted elsewhere, we are still going to win the war in Vietnam.

Now, it seems to me, the parallel question is, who in the middle east is making the reforms that Thailand, Malaysia, etc made in SAE? I just don't see it. Every once in a while there's a glimmer of hope here or there, but no bright shining lights.

That said, I do like the economic and social changes shown by Dubai. Politically, it's still 7th century, but that may change too.

What think?

[aktarian]

Not ALL the dominoes fell.

Laos didn't go communist
Cambodia didn't go communist
Burma didn't go communist

oops

What about others? Thailand, Philippines etc etc.

One of the most eloquent defenses of the Vietnam war I heard was one of the other SEAsian leaders explaining that the time from 1965-75 allowed the ASEAN countries enough time and outside resources to build strong enough institutions/economies to ward off communism. And, as I posted elsewhere, we are still going to win the war in Vietnam.

Good point.

Now, it seems to me, the parallel question is, who in the middle east is making the reforms that Thailand, Malaysia, etc made in SAE? I just don't see it. Every once in a while there's a glimmer of hope here or there, but no bright shining lights.

That said, I do like the economic and social changes shown by Dubai. Politically, it's still 7th century, but that may change too.

What think?

Well "reforms" can go in two ways. One is democratic other is secular autoritarism. Neither are perfect, in former you can get islamists in power (something that happens every time these countries have anything resembling democratic elections) later only supresses them and doesn't really solve them.

[Steve Blair]

The biggest issue I see with Congress getting involved at this stage in the way that they have (much like they did in Vietnam) is that there is no accountability for them. Popular memory (not necessarily history) remembers Watergate, not Kennedy making political hay out of the casualties at Dong Ap Bai (Hamburger Hill). It also remembers the photos of the last helicopters out of Saigon, not the lackluster political decisions made by Congress that led up to that moment.

Bush has certainly made mistakes with Iraq, and they will be remembered as his. But within the anonymity of "consensus" and "voting blocks" Congress may once again be able to evade theirs. To borrow some of Nagl's framework, this certainly does NOT make Congress a "learning institution," and perhaps teaches them a dangerous lesson: They can act (or fail to act) with near impunity because of their sheer size and lack of political accountability. Elections certainly are not accountability in this case, especially when one considers the Senate. Kennedy has never been held accountable for his poor decisions in the late 1960s, and he seems to have failed to learn from them. The same could be said for many of his colleagues.

[SWJED]

31 May LA Times commentary - The Lessons of Vietnam by Henry A. Kissinger.

The Iraq war has reawakened memories of the Vietnam War, the most significant political experience of an entire American generation. But this has not produced clarity about its lessons.

Of course, history never repeats itself exactly. Vietnam and Iraq are different conflicts in different times, but there is an important similarity: A point was reached during the Vietnam War when the domestic debate became so bitter as to preclude rational discussion of hard choices. Administrations of both political parties perceived the survival of South Vietnam as a significant national interest. They were opposed by a protest movement that coalesced behind the conviction that the war reflected an amorality that had to be purged by confrontational methods. This impasse doomed the U.S. effort in Vietnam; it must not be repeated over Iraq.

This is why a brief recapitulation of the Indochina tragedy is necessary...