Professor Gabriel Kolko is a leading historian of modern warfare. He wrote ‘Century of War: Politics, Conflicts and Society Since 1914’ and, in 2002, ‘Another Century of War?’
There are great cultural, political, and physical differences between Vietnam and Iraq which cannot be minimized, and the geopolitical situation is entirely different.
After all, the U.S. encouraged and materially supported Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran throughout the 1980s because it feared a militantly Shiite Iran would dominate the Gulf region. It still does. But the U.S. has ignored many of the lessons of the traumatic Vietnam experience and is today repeating many of the errors that produced defeat.
In both places successive American dministrations slighted the advice of its most knowledgeable intelligence experts. In Vietnam they told Washington’s decision-makers not to tread where France had failed and to endorse the 1955 Geneva Accords provisos on unification. They also warned against underestimating the Communists’ numbers, motivation, or their independent relationship to China and the Soviet Union.
But America’s leaders have time and again believed what they wanted, not what their intelligence told them.
The Pentagon in the 1960s had an uncritical faith in its overwhelming firepower, its modern equipment, mobility, and mastery of the skies. It still does, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld believes the military has the technology to “shock and awe” all adversaries.
But war in Vietnam, as in Iraq, was highly decentralized and the number of troops required only increased even as the firepower became greater. When they reached a half-million Americans in Vietnam the public turned against the President and defeated his party.
Wars are ultimately won politically or not at all. This is true of all wars and at all times. Leaders in Washington thought this interpretation of events in Vietnam was bizarre, and they ignored its experts whenever they frequently reminded them of the limits of military power.
The importance of Vietnamese politics was slighted, escalations followed, and the “credibility” of American military power – the willingness to use it and win no matter how long it took – became their primary concern.
In both Vietnam and Iraq the public was mobilized on the basis of cynical falsehoods which ultimately backfired, causing “credibility gap.” People eventually ceased to believe anything Washington told them.
The Tonkin Gulf crisis of August 1964 was manufactured, as the CIA’s leading analyst later admitted in his memoir, because “the administration was seeking a pretext for a major escalation.”
Countless lies were told during the Vietnam War but eventually many of the men who counted most were themselves unable separate truth from fiction. Many American leaders really believed that if the Communists won in Vietnam the “dominoes” would fall and all Southeast Asia would fall under Chinese and Soviet domination.
The Iraq War was justified because Hussein was alleged to have weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al-Qaeda, but no evidence for either allegation has been found.
There are 130,000 American troops in Iraq now -twice the number that Bush predicted would remain by this month – but, as in Vietnam, their morale is already low and sinking.
Bush’s ratings in the polls have fallen dramatically – especially as he has run up huge budget deficits and ignored domestic issues, such as health insurance, which may ultimately determine how people vote in the 2004 election.
He needs many more soldiers in Iraq desperately and foreign nations will not provide them.
In Vietnam, President Nixon tried to “Vietnamize” the land war and transfer the burdens of soldiering to Nguyen Van Thieu’s huge army. But it was demoralized and organized to maintain Thieu in power, not win the victory that had eluded American forces.
“Iraqization” of the military force required to put down dissidents will not accomplish what has eluded the Americans, and in both Vietnam and Iraq the U.S. underestimated the length of time it would have to remain and cultivated illusions about the strength of its friends.
The Iraqi army was disbanded but now is being partially reconstituted by utilizing Hussein’s officers and enlisted men. As in Vietnam, where the Buddhists opposed the Catholics who comprised the leaders America endorsed, Iraq is a divided nation regionally and religiously, and Washington has the unenviable choice between the risks of disorder which its own lack of troops make likely and civil war if it arms Iraqis.
Despite plenty of expert opinion to warn it, the Bush Administration has scant perception of the complexity of the political problems it confronts in Iraq. Afghanistan looms as a reminder of how military success depends ultimately on politics, and how things go wrong.
Rumsfeld’s admission in his confidential memo last October 16th that “we lack the metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror” was an indication that key members of the Bush Administration are far less confident of what they are doing than they were early in 2003.
But as in Vietnam, when Defense Secretary Robert McNamara ceased to believe that victory was inevitable, it is too late to reverse course and now the credibility of America’s military power is at stake.
Eventually, domestic politics takes precedence over everything else. It did in Vietnam War and it will in Iraq.
By 1968 the polls were turning against the Democrats and the Tet Offensive in February caught President Lyndon Johnson by surprise because he and his generals refused to believe the CIA’s estimates that there were really 600,000 rather than 300,000 people in the Communist forces.
Nixon won because he promised a war-weary public he would bring peace with honor. Bush declared last October 28 that “we’re not leaving” Iraq soon, but his party and political advisers are likely to have the last word as American casualties mount and his poll ratings continue to decline.
Vietnam proved that the American public has limited patience. That is still true.
The real lessons of Vietnam have yet to be learned.