A Proper Vietnam Analogy

This post from Mudville Gazette has some great military history perspective on the present war in Iraq, and the difficulties we face there. The bit about Tet was especially appropriate. People, including Senators Kennedy and Kerry, are all too happy to make irresponsible statements linking Iraq and Vietnam. There are good analogies to be made, however.

Most of the faulty comparisons come from a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation in Vietnam, and how our involvement there ended. Late last year, I was debating with my future brother in law about politics, and of course Vietnam came up. He said something I think most people in this country believe: "Basically, the war was over after Tet." That statement is wrong, but it contains a grain of truth few would acknowledge.

In the book, A Better War, author Lewis Sorley describes the often ignored course of the Vietnam conflict post-Tet. He focuses on the change in strategy and tactics brought about when Gen Abrams took over command from Gen Westmoreland. Now, there is little doubt that Westmoreland's strategy was fundamentally flawed. He was as out of touch with the reality on the ground, out in the countryside, almost as much as his predecessor, Gen Harkins. This is described in heartbreaking detail in Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie. Westmoreland's emphasis on searching out and destroying VC and NVA units in battle was counterproductive - until the enemy cooperated, with militarily stupidity, by launching the Tet Offensive in January, 1968, and following up with the almost-as-disastrous "Mini-Tet" in May and the later offensive in September. Said North Vietnamese Gen Bui Tin:

Our forces in the South were nearly wiped out by all the fighting in 1968. It took us until 1971 to reestablish our presence, but we had to use North Vietnamese troops as local guerillas. If the American forces had not begun to withdraw under Nixon in 1969, they could have punished us severely. We suffered badly in 1969 and 1970 as it was.

In fact, Giap opposed the subsequent offensives after the first disaster of Tet. He suffered politically for it.

Col/Dr/CIA guy/TANKER Sorley goes even further, in the chapter entitled Victory:

There came a time when the war was won. The fighting wasn't over, but the war was won. This achievement can probably best be dated in late 1970, after the Cambodian incursion in the spring of the year. By then the South Vietnamese countryside had been widely pacified, so much so that the term "pacification" was no longer even used.... South Vietnam's armed forces, greatly expanded and impressively equipped, were substantially more capable than even a couple of years earlier. Their most impressive gains were in the ranks of the territorial forces - the Regional Forces and Popular Forces [Ruf-Puff] - providing close-in security for the people in the countryside. The successful pacification program, one repeatedly cited in enemy communications as a threat that had to be countered, was extending not only security but also elected government, trained hamlet and village officials, and economic gains to most of the people.

Thus did Abrams exploit the self-destruction of the Viet Cong forces during 1968 to effectively end the insurgency by 1970. He beefed up local security forces, changed the deployment of US forces, and destroyed the VC infrastructure. From then on the war was mostly conventional. The Vietnamization policy of the Nixon Administration was designed to equip and train South Vietnamese forces to go toe-to-toe with the NVA. They needed a lot of US support to fight off the Easter Offensive of 1972. But "'General Abrams was convinced - he said it to me - that if properly supported the South Vietnamese could make it on their own,' recalled General Donn Starry." It was not until our cut-and-run in 1973, thanks to the Fulbright-Aiken Amendment, that the fate of South Vietnam was sealed. With no financial or military aid from the US, South Vietnam could hardly compete with the China and USSR supplied NVA. And so fell prey to the final NVA offensive of early 1975.

In extensive reading on Vietnam, both as a military officer and an amateur military history buff, one of the things I've realized is that the war went through so many phases, over such a long period of time, that generalizations are impossible. The derogatory statement, "ARVN rifle, never been fired and only been dropped once," is largely accurate for the early war. After a few years of Vietnamization, it was no longer true. The helo assault into the Ia Drang, the retaking of Hue, and the battle for Hamburger Hill contrast sharply with small unit patrols and squad night ambushes. Most weapons and ammo given to Ruff-Puff forces in 1965 went right into the hands of the VC. After our emphasis shifted to rural pacification, those security forces proved instrumental in rooting out the VC infrastructure.

The point is it took us almost five years to come up with an effective strategy in Vietnam. By that time the US public had lost its will to continue the fight. In the supreme irony of that war, the loss of will came after the insurgency was largely defeated, and victory possible. That is the lesson we should draw from Vietnam. It is notable that we have not taken anywhere near so long to establish an effective political and military stategy in Iraq. The majority of the people are on our side (their side). With the reduction of the Fallujah pocket, the continuing roll-up of Zarqawi's terror network, and popular elections happening today, all that remains is to cut off the outside support coming from Syria and Iran. We never really cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail, despite successes in 1971. This is the one chink in our current strategy in Iraq.