“Burying the Ghosts of Vietnam”

[Rob Thornton]

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,

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

[Ken White]

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...

[Rick Bennett]

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:

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

Shades of the ISAF Rules of Engagement blowback!

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

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.

[Backwards Observer]

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.