We never won in Vietnam. Over the weekend I found a November 2009 Newsweek issue about how the could have won in Vietnam. The headline addressed historical lessons regarding current US military goals in Afghanistan.
The lead was an attempt at revisionism regarding the war. It may be a trend to boast we could have won fighting the NVA and VietCong. To be honest the Pentagon Papers are now proving to be the ultimate trump card against revisionist history.
So far I have pushed through about half of the Pentagon Papers 7,300 pages. The early volumes alone provide clear evidence we NEVER could have won in Vietnam.
Two issues from the early volumes emerged: US military efforts were handcuffed by trilateral diplomacy with China and the Soviet Union from the very beginning of the war. Second and more importantly, the South Vietnamese could not match the determination of their enemy. At the same time I realize it would be almost another two years before article writers Evan Thomas and John Barry would have access to the Pentagon Papers. Wonder what a re-write of this article would say today.
The story goes into detail about current US military leaders in Afghanistan reading a revisionist history book by Lew Sorely entitled A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam. Sorely point of view is that we could have defeated the communist North in 1964 and then seven years later in 1971. Again, to be fair Sorely also did not have access to the Pentagon Papers.
Sorely wrote the US military had not one but two chances for victory in 1964 and 1971. Sorely argued a quick US escalation in 1964 by LBJ focused on North Vietnam’s naval ports could have turned the war in favor of the South.
However here is the opening summary and analysis on page 5 of Part IV-C-9a Evolution of the War US/GVN Relations 1963-1967 Part I:
In 1964 the U.S. tried to make GVN strong, effective, and stable, and it failed. When the U.S. offered more aid, GVN accepted it without improving; they promised to mobilize, but failed to speed up the slow buildup of their forces. When the U.S. offered a firmer commitment to encourage them, including possible later bombing of North Vietnam, the GVU tried to pressure us to do it sooner, When the U.S. endorsed Khanh, he over played his hand, provoked mob violence, and had to back down to a weaker position than before. When Taylor lectured them and threatened them, the ruling generals of GVN defied him, and allied themselves with the street rioters. After several changes of government in Vietnam, the U.S. could set no higher goal than GVN stability. During this period, the USG was already starting to think about doing the job ourselves if our Vietnamese ally did not preform.
At first the U.S. thought that the power of the Vietnamese generals would make GVN strong and effective, In fact, the U.S. preference, at this time, was for military leadership in the GVN However, the generals proved to be less than perfectly united. They found they had to bow to the power of student and Buddhist street mobs and they lacked the will and the ability to compel the civil government to perform. Yet, the U.S. saw no alternative but to back them — to put up with Vietnamese hypersensitivity, their easy compliance combined with nonperformance, and their occasional defiance. Moreover, MACV was even less ready to pressure the generals than was the Embassy and the Embassy less willing than Washington, MACV controlled the resources that mattered most to the South Vietnamese.
Then Sorely argued that Nixon in 1971, after General Westmoreland was replaced gave the US military another opportunity to defeat the North. I cannot look past his second view for events in 1971 since this is SEVEN years after his first suggestion.
Seven years after? Our country waged a total global war (World War II) in less than five years. From Japan’s surprise attack at Pearl Harbor to their surrender on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Yet as the world’s most powerful nation we could not defeat an enemy isolated to the SouthEast Asian peninsula?
Sorely’s argument is troubling to me regarding Afghanistan. We can successfully fight the Axis powers and conquer the world. Yet within a decade we cannot contain a much smaller enemy force? The distance between Saigon and Hanoi is 1,000 miles. And Vietnam to quote General Curtis Lemay lived in a stone-age agrarian society. Further proof the train was already off the tracks in 1964 which strongly repudiates Sorely:
Pacification lagged, and the military picture steadily worsened. Planning of pressures against the North became more urgent, and the prospect of increasing U.S. inputs to all phases of the war loomed larger. The U.S. was more and more abandoning the hope that the Vietnamese could win the war by themselves. At the same time, the U. S. was preparing itself internally (NSAM 288 with the objective of an “independent non-communist Vietnam”) and readying the American people (the Tonkin Gulf Resolution) for deeper commitments.
The Pentagon Papers release makes these articles and Sorely’s book irrelevant. The first eight of the Pentagon Papers forty-seven volumes reveal overwhelming details by US Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) and White House policy advisors who both expressed strong concerns about not winning in Vietnam — even before LBJ were ordered US Marines into Vietnam in March 1965.
To further understand how 1964 was lost I strongly suggest reading the full volume [Part IV. C. 9. a.] Evolution of the War. U.S.-GVN Relations. Volume 1: December 1963 – June 1965 321.5MB PDF download