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For the purposes of this paper, it is not necessary to develop the entire DPM argumentation of the pros and cons of the respective courses of action. It will suffice to include the sections dealing with the air war elements of the two options. (It should be noted, however, that the air and ground programs were treated as an integrated package in each option.) This then was the way the DPM developed the analysis of the “Tar segment of course of action A:
Bombing Purposes and Payoffs
Our bombing of North Vietnam was designed to serve three purposes:
–(1) To retaliate and to lift the morale of the people in the South who were being attacked by agents of the North.–(2) To add to the pressure on Hanoi to end the war.
–(3) To reduce the flow and/or to increase the cost of infiltrating men and materiel from North to South.
We cannot ignore that a limitation on bombing will cause serious psychological problems among the men, officers and commanders, who will not be able to understand why we should withhold punishment from the enemy. General Westmoreland said that he is “frankly dismayed at even the thought of stopping the bombing program.” But this reason for attacking North Vietnam must be scrutinized carefully. We should not bomb for punitive reasons if it serves no other purpose — especially if analysis shows that the actions may be counterproductive. It costs American lives; it creates a backfire of revulsion and opposition by killing civilians; it creates serious risks; it may harden the enemy.
With respect to added pressure on the North, it is becoming apparent that Hanoi may already have “written off” all assets and lives that might be destroyed by US military actions short of occupation of annihilation. They can and will hold out at least so long as a prospect of winning the war of attrition” in the South exists. And our best judgment is that a Hanoi prerequisite to negotiations is significant retrenchment (if not complete stoppage of US military actions against them — at the l east, a cessation of bombing. In this connection, Consul-General Rice (Hong Kong 7581, 5/1/67) said that in his opinion, we cannot by bombing reach the critical level of pain in North Vietnam and that, “below that level, pain only increases the will to fight. It Sir Robert Thompson said to Mr. Vance on April 28 that our bombing, particularly in the Red River Delta, “is unifying North Vietnam.”
With respect to interdiction of men and materiel, it now appears that no combination of actions against the North short of destruction of the regime or occupation of North Vietnamese territory will physically reduce the flow of men and materiel below the relatively small amount needed by enemy forces to continue the war in the South. Our effort can and does have severe disruptive effects, which Hanoi can and does plan on and pre-stock against. Our efforts physically to cut the flow meaningfully by actions in North Vietnam therefore largely fail and, in failing, transmute attempted interdiction into pain, or pressure on the North (the factor discussed in the paragraph next above). The lowest “ceiling” on infiltration can probably be achieved by concentration on the North Vietnamese “funnel” south of 200 and on the Trail in Laos.
But what if the above analyses are wrong? Why not escalate the bombing and mine the harbors (and perhaps occupy southern North Vietnam) — on the gamble that it would constrict the flow, meaningfully limiting enemy action in the South, and that it would bend Hanoi? The answer is that the costs and risks of the actions must be considered.
The primary costs of course are US lives: The air campaign against heavily defended areas costs us one pilot in every 40 sorties. In addition, an important but hard-to-measure cost is domestic and world opinion: There may be a limit beyond which many Americans and much of the world will not permit the United States to go. The picture of the world’s greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1000 non-combatants a week, while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one. It could conceivably produce a costly distortion in the American national consciousness and in the world image of the United States — especially if the damage to North Vietnam is complete enough to be “successful.”
The most important risk, however, is the likely Soviet, Chinese and North Vietnamese reaction to intensified US air attacks, harbor-mining, and ground actions against North Vietnam.
Likely: Communist Reactions
At the present time, no actions-except airstrikes and artillery fire necessary to quiet hostile batteries across the border — are allowed against Cambodian territory. In Laos, we average 5000 attack sorties a month against the infiltration routes and base areas, we fire artillery from South Vietnam against targets in Laos, and we will be providing 3-man leadership for each of 20 12-man US-Vietnamese Special Forces terms that operate to a depth of 20 kilometers into Laos. Against North Vietnam, “life average 8,000 or more attack sorties a month against all worthwhile fixed and LOC targets; we use artillery against ground targets across the DMZ; we fire from naval vessels at targets ashore and afloat up to 190;and we mine their inland waterways, estuaries up to 200.Intensified air attacks against the same types of targets, we would anticipate, would lead to no great change in the policies and reactions of the Communist powers beyond the furnishing of some new equipment and manpower. China, for example, has not reacted to our striking MIG fields in North Vietnam, and we do not expect them to, although there are some signs of greater Chinese participation in North Vietnamese air defense.
Mining the harbors would be much more serious. It would place Moscow in a particularly galling dilemma as to how to preserve the Soviet position and prestige in such a disadvantageous place. The Soviets might, but probably would not, force a confrontation in Southeast Asia — where even with minesweepers they, would be at as great a military disadvantage as we were when they blocked the corridor to Berlin in 1961, but where their vital interest, unlike ours in Berlin (and in Cuba), is not so clearly at stake. Moscow in this case should be expected to send volunteers, including pilots, to North Vietnam; to provide some new and better weapons and equipment; to consider some action in Korea, Turkey, Iran, the Middle East or, most likely, Berlin, where the Soviets can control the degree of crisis better; and to show across-the-board hostility toward the US (interrupting any on-going conversations on ARMs, non-proliferation, etc.). China could be expected to seize upon the harbor mining as the opportunity to reduce Soviet political influence in Hanoi and to discredit the USSR if the Soviets took no military action to open the ports. Peking might read the harbor mining as indicating that the US was going to apply military pressure until North Vietnam capitulated, and that this meant an eventual invasion. If so, China might decide to intervene in the war with combat troops and air power, to which we would eventually have to respond by bombing Chinese airfields and perhaps other targets as well. Hanoi would tighten belts, refuse to talk, and persevere — as it could without too much difficulty. North Vietnam would of course be fully dependent for supplies on China’s will, and Soviet influence in Hanoi would therefore be reduced. (Ambassador Sullivan feels very strongly that it would be a serious mistake, by our actions against the port, to tip Hanoi away from Moscow and toward Peking.)
To US ground actions in North Vietnam, we would expect China to respond by entering the war with both ground and air forces. The Soviet Union could be expected in these circumstances to take all actions listed above under the lesser provocations and to generate a serious confrontation with the United States at one or more places of her own choosing.