American strategy in the Vietnam War
Many historians have concluded that it was highly improbable for the United States to "win" a war in Vietnam; "winning" for the USA being a complete expulsion of communist power from Indochina. Much of this position is based on the earlier French failure to retain colonial control of Indochina; given how late the USA was to become a world power (in contrast with France's long history of successful colonial control), American victory odds seem inherently unfavourable.1 2 The fall of Paris in 1940 heavily exacerbated what was previously underlying colonial unrest and made it a true threat; from 1955, US policy aimed to replace France as the Western power in Indochina and stop the spread of communism in what would eventually become a proxy war with the USSR and China.3 For this essay, I will analyse various war strategies from 1954-65 in this Cold War context, and assess whether they could have been war winning if implemented successfully. Firstly it is important to look at US political strategy: such as SEATO, the Manila Pact, and the installation of what was many have called a "puppet government" in South Vietnam.4 5 I will also assess actual war and military strategy, particularly that of Westmoreland's call for a greater troop presence and an aggressive, over-reaching strategy from 1964.6 It is important to analyse American political strategy in an overarching military context before "true" war broke out; American political strategy in Vietnam was only sustainable "by the threat of US armed intervention and ultimately by its actual execution".7 Overall, the answer to the titular question is a definitive "no" for a number of reasons. US strategy attempted to replace France after the French loss in Indochina in 1954, while simultaneously repeating French mistakes: trying to force conventional battle with a guerilla enemy, and implement Western capitalism in a nation surrounded by communist superpowers. US strategists contradicted each other: long-term strategy from 1955 aimed to retain and strengthen South Vietnam, yet impatient US officials decided to "take the war to the (ever-hidden) enemy" a decade later, with catastrophic failure. The nature of US impatience for a "win" and a refusal to learn from France inevitably led to ineffective bombing campaigns, loss of life, and eventual collapse of South Vietnam. These flaws in US strategy were inherent from 1945. Furthermore, an American "win" in this particular front wound have worsened Cold War relations; an actual conflict between the "East" and "West" can certainly not be called a "win" for US strategists.8
The time frame that this essay focuses on – 1954-65 – has been described as the "crucial formative period"; the years that decidedly committed the US in Vietnam and polarized the North against the South.9 US involvement in Indochina (and thus the roots of American strategy from 1954-65) has its beginnings in the 1946-54 French Indochina War; signs of future American strategic failure can be found as early as the late 1940s. We can also look at the 1954-65 time frame as a period where a winning American strategy could be developed: by analysing the failures of the French in Indochina and taking care to not repeat history; the USA failed to capitalize on this. There are two critical issues of the French Indochina War that link to my overarching argument: that the USA never had a war-winning strategy in Vietnam. Firstly, American impatience and a desire for quick victory: Maclear describes the proxy effect that this had in 1953-54, wherein risky military strategy was implemented by Navarre as "America wanted results for its aid".10 This phenomenon of American "impatience" created and encouraged failing strategy in the following decades, observable in numerous examples. Cutler cites American impatience at military stalemate in the early 1970s leading to a faltering of American will and eventual military withdrawal; "impatience" furthermore explaining the massively expensive and largely ineffective US bombing campaigns.11
US political strategy in Vietnam from late 1954 eventually failed; furthermore, it strikingly resembles the aforementioned failing US military strategy from 1965 onwards in one key way: in that it arrogantly disregards France. 1955 represents the end of French-US association and the beginnings of an independent American military-political intervention in Vietnam; the USA "displacing France as the major external power".12 Yet the key American strategy from 1955 was to essentially mimic French colonialism on a smaller scale, creating a South Vietnam "puppet state" in an attempt to undermine nationalists; US officials believing that this strategy would allow South Vietnam to "absorb the North into a single anticommunist state".13 Many problems that would leave American war efforts hopeless were experienced by France in the previous decades; these have been outlined by Maclear. In Dien Bien Phu, French forces believed that air supremacy and superior technology, along with destroying Viet Minh supply lines, would give France the opportunity to force a conventional battle. Furthermore, French strategy was based around aggression and quickly reclaiming Indochina following the fall of Nazi Germany, despite France forces recovering from the Second World War and not being ready (politically or militarily) to do so.
This aggressive strategy, in ways reminiscent of the fast-paced battles of the Second World War, existed through the France-Indochina conflict and the US-Vietnam war; in every case, it failed.14 15 The geographical characteristics of Indochina, guerilla-style warfare, the ever-present threat of Chinese intervention, and hidden jungle supply lines meant that this quintessentially modern and Eurocentric strategy would inevitably fail for both France and the US. The key issue here is that the US military did not "learn their lesson" from French failure, or heed the criticisms and warnings from De Gaulle throughout the 1960s.16 Although a broad statement to make, it is a plausible argument that all American strategy borne out of this impatient and arguably arrogant climate would ultimately fail, for these reasons alone. Although largely outside the time frame of this essay, these two issues explain precisely why there was never a war-winning strategy for the USA in Vietnam. The late 1950s and early 1960s should have been the era for American politicians and military advisors to analyse French failure and take great care to not repeat it, and develop a winning strategy. "Winning" in this case could mean a full expulsion of communism and nationalist from Vietnam, or simply withdrawing troops from Vietnam before the US became too committed in the conflict; yet American failure echoed that of France. The inability to learn from France and a desire for quick victory meant that American strategy from 1954 onwards was doomed to fail; ineffective bombing campaigns and hopeless attempts at forcing conventional battles throughout the 1960s and 1970s are the evidence.
Another issue that rendered US strategy in Vietnam doomed to fail was the constant contradictions of strategy and conflict between US officials. As mentioned, any war-winning strategy in Vietnam would have to learn from past shortcomings in Asia, and more importantly, not repeat French mistakes. Partially, US strategy from 1955 was based on "lessons learned", from China: Dulles under the Eisenhower administration believed that an eventual US success must be borne from initially yielding some territory (the North) to the communists while strengthening US held (or allied) territory.17 This strategy was contradictory however: US political strategy, until the late 1960s, was based around strengthening South Vietnam for an eventual annexation of the North, requiring patience. As mentioned earlier, American impatience for a "win" in Vietnam was a genuine phenomenon that historians have used to (at least partially) explain eventual strategic failure; yet US military strategy from the mid 1950s critically required patience. Evidence of impatience, and thus US strategic demise, is clear from the 1950s onwards: Westmoreland's rapidly increasing troop deployment numbers, inconsequential bombing campaigns, and an overwhelming desire for "results" rendered Dulle's strategy doomed to failure.18 19 Furthermore evident in this seemingly contradictory US strategy is the issue of a "conflict of strategy": Cutler highlights the disunity between Krulak, Harriman and Westmoreland from 1962-66, wherein strategic plans were quickly disbanded before they had a chance to work. Ultimately, this led to simply "taking the war to the enemy": a strategy that was hopeless against a nationalist guerilla enemy, borne out of impatience and disunity between US strategists.20
Finally, a lack of powerful allies in the Vietnam conflict was a further critical problem and partially explains the rush for a quick victory (before the USSR and China had time to react). Despite much of American strategy being dependent on the threat of capitalist allies (Britain and to an extent France), Britain and France never provided military support from 1955 onwards. Once again we see strategic contradiction; US intervention in Vietnam was deliberately independent from France from 1954, but it still relied on prospective military allies that American officials believed would get involved in an eventual South-East Asia conflict. The 1954 Manila Pact was essentially a threat to the cold war enemies of the USA: that SEATO (South Asia Treaty Organization) nations, including Britain and France, would be present alongside the USA if anti-communist military action materialized.21 Yet no British or French troops were sent to support the USA; small Australian, Thai and Filipino divisions were allied yet largely operated separately from Americans, and not sent in large enough numbers (even if we argue that any number would be large enough to force communism out of South East Asia). This "lack of allies" stems from China and the USSR not officially being involved in the conflict; yet if either China or the USSR were, a global and potentially apocalyptic Cold War would certainly not have been a strategic win for the USA.22
For this essay, there is a key reason I have largely focused on underlying issues in American strategy making from 1954 onwards: Simply, my argument is not that any specific US strategy in Vietnam was destined to failure; rather, all American strategy created from 1950 onwards would inherently lead to failure. The phenomenon of American impatience combined with the failure of US officials to learn from the France-Indochina war is evident in US political strategy. South Vietnam heavily resembled failed French colonialism, its puppet government and forced westernisation was destined to fail in an environment of widespread nationalism and guerilla fighters aided by communist superpowers to the north and east. Later, US efforts were aimed at obtaining quick "wins" and hopeless attempts to force conventional battles in a guerilla environment. This overarching theme of arrogant and impatient strategy was further weakened by the constant conflict and contradiction between US strategy makers; in less than a decade, long-term bolstering of South Vietnam was abandoned in favour of "taking the war to the enemy", with disastrous consequences. Finally, the lack of military support from any world powers meant that any American war strategy had to attempt to force a win largely independently – against an enemy heavily backed by two local superpowers. All factors combined, we can see that US war-winning strategy did not exist from 1954-65; policy was created without learning from France's defeat, and was dependent on SEATO allies that largely refused to commit to fighting for an American victory which now seems hopeless from the onset.
Bibliography
Edwards, P.G., Crises and commitments: the politics and diplomacy of Australia's involvement in South-east Asian conflicts 1948-1965 (Sydney, 1992)
Hammer, Ellen J., The Struggle for Indochina: 1940-1955 (California, 1966)
Kahin, George McTurnan, Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam (New York, 1986)
Pike, Francis, Empires at War: A Short History of Modern Asia Since World War II (London, 2010)
Maclear, M., Vietnam: the ten thousand day war (London, 1989)
Cutler, Thomas, The U.S. Naval Institute on Vietnam: A Retrospective (Maryland, 2016)
Waite, James, The End of the First Indochina War: A Global History (New York, 2012)
Phnom Penh Post Online
1 P.G. Edwards, Crises and commitments: the politics and diplomacy of Australia's involvement in South-east Asian conflicts 1948-1965 (Sydney, 1992), ch. 9.
2 Ellen J. Hammer, The Struggle for Indochina: 1940-1955 (California, 1966), ch. 4-6.
3 Ibid, 170.
4 George McTurnan Kahin, Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam (New York, 1986), ch. 9.
5 Ibid, ch 1-3.
6 Ibid, ch. 8
7 Ibid, 66.
8 Francis Pike, Empires at War: A Short History of Modern Asia Since World War II (London, 2010), chs. 30, 36.
9 Ibid,6.
10 M. Maclear, Vietnam: the ten thousand day war (London, 1989), 45.
11 Thomas Cutler, The U.S. Naval Institute on Vietnam: A Retrospective (Maryland, 2016), 30-31.
12 Kahin, Intervention, 66.
13 Ibid, 66-67.
14 Maclear, Vietnam, 43-46.
15 James Waite, The End of the First Indochina War: A Global History (New York, 2012), ch. 2.
16 http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/de-gaulles-famous-1966-speech-remembered (Accessed 28 March 2017)
17 Ibid, ch. 3.
18 Ibid, chs. 3, 8.
19 Cutler, The U.S. Naval Institute, ch. 3.
20 Cutler, The U.S. Naval Institute, ch. 7.
21 Kahin, Intervention, ch. 3.
22 Ibid, chs. 3, 8, 9.
