Public Papers of JFK 1961

[Bill Moore]

http://www.jfklink.com/speeches/jfk/...jfk435_61.html

Letter to President Ngo Dinh Diem on the Sixth Anniversary of the Republic of Viet-Nam.
October 26, 1961

Mr. President, America is well aware of the increased intensity which in recent months has marked the war against your people, and of the expanding scale and frequency of the Communist attacks. I have read your speech to the Vietnamese National Assembly in which you outline so clearly the threat of Communism to Viet-Nam. And I have taken note of the stream of threats and vituperation, directed at your government and mine, that flows day and night from Hanoi. Let me assure you again that the United States is determined to help Viet-Nam preserve its independence, protect its people against Communist assassins, and build a better life through economic growth.

I am awaiting with great interest the report of General Maxwell Taylor based on his recent talks and observations in Viet-Nam, supplementing reports I have received from our Embassy there over many months.

I will then be in a better position to consider with you additional measures that we might take to assist the republic of Viet-Nam in its struggle against the Communist aggressors.

[Madhu]

Actually, for most Foreign Policy and Military Affairs, you can read documents right out of the post World War II period and pretty much sum up the current conventional wisdom.

For my particular hobby horse, American policy toward South Asian countries, it's even more maddening. Not a new thought in decades and decades, despite evidence to the contrary. IMO.

PS: Okay, I don't really know that for everything. I am such an exaggerator. Amend that to, "for the few things I read, it seems like nothing new under the sun...."

[Bob's World]

http://www.jfklink.com/speeches/jfk/...jfk435_61.html

Letter to President Ngo Dinh Diem on the Sixth Anniversary of the Republic of Viet-Nam.
October 26, 1961

Dejavu. Change a few words and this could be a letter from President Obama to Mr. Karzai on the 6th anniversary of the Republic of Afghanistan...

In both cases, it was US action by the previous US President that both created the republic in question and elevated that partner President into power. This then left to the successor US president the difficult task of sustaining a system so illegitimate in its roots against a growing opposition by those disposed of a power they had earned through warfare.

We intervene for our interests, then confuse the picture when we attempt to justify our actions in the context of the interests of the systems we create. But for Ike's intervention there would most likely have been a fairly stable, unified Vietnam by 1961, albeit with a communist system of governance, under a president with local legitimacy. This independent country would most likely have turned to the US to help protect it from unwanted controlling influence out of the Soviet Union or China. But our opposition to that served to push them into those very camps to generate sufficient capacity to stand up to what the US brought to the fight.

Inevitably the best interests of the people caught in the middle of such internal and external power plays are the ones who suffer most.

Are we similarly pushing Afghans deeper into the arms of those we intervened to block the influence of in the first place? I doubt many Pashtuns would have been willing to support an AQ operation against a foreign target prior to 9/11. After the past 11 years of US intervention in Afghanistan I suspect that is no longer the case.

Tactically, the conflicts in Vietnam and Afghanistan are/were two very different places (though very similar programs have been tried in both). Strategically, however, they are/were very similar and we have made many of the same strategic decisions for very similar rationale that led framed an unwindable situation in Vietnam to frame an equally unwindable situation in Afghanistan. This the problem of focusing on tactics (programs, actions, lessons learned, metrics, etc). It detracts from the larger issues that frame from the outset the conditions those tactics will take place within.

Vietnam was lost in the 50s, not the 70s. Everything in between was in many ways as unnecessary as it was ineffective. Similarly Afghanistan was lost in '02-'04 in how we framed both the problem and the solution strategically. We need to get better at strategy, and studying paper such as these shared by Bill with an open mind are a critical step in that process.

I am finding a wealth of strategic products organized by administration here:

https://www.hsdl.org/?collection/stratpol&id=pd&pid=rr