America’s Dilemma and Vietnam

Vietnam War which ended by the Paris Peace Accord in the year 1973, yet it had left incredible marks in the heart of the political domain of America. The statement of Henry Kissinger, “Vietnam is still with us” 1 speaks the volume of effect the policies of respective Presidents on the Vietnam War has created in the minds of thinkers, critics and people alike. Since last many years, thinkers had been analyzing the reasons behind failure. Many are pointing towards the fact that America might have won strategically but had lost politically as well as militarily. There are also notions of the causes of the failure owing to military strategy at several levels.

On the other hand, it is also said that failure was due to the political restrictions being posed by civilian leaders at home on the military leadership. Despite failures, this war proved as a lesson to be learnt while dealing in the foreign policy matters. H. R. McMaster, an Army Major, in his book, “Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam”, described 36th President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson who followed the strategy known as “graduated pressure” 2 preventing discussions on the Vietnam War until the situation went out of control. The President’s conduct was not only undemocratic but also removed any chances of corrective measures. His decision was based on his predicament for his position as a President.

Secondly, his decision to consider bombings as an alternative solution to the war was based on his miscalculations regarding the impact bombings could create. Many people in the administration argued against bombings on the point that bombings would not make the way for a peace process and assurance for Hanoi to induce North Vietnam to recede back in their support for insurgency. Pentagon too predicted grave reaction from the side of enemy on the ground but McNamara did not heed to their advice. For McNamara, the war was nothing more than another business management problem and he tried to solve it by air bombings. Without analyzing the current political, social and cultural situation among the forces, McNamara tried to solve the problem based on the assumptions that bombings on the fixed installations and economic buildings would make North Vietnamese succumb to their demands.

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The bombings on the fixed installations did not create any effect on the forces that were always on the move. Johnson, in the spring of 1965, without giving any concrete strategic motives, ordered the Joint Chief of Staff to “kill more Viet Cong,” 3 a tactical mission. It was never clear how these bombs over the noncombatant population could bring this War to an end. Johnson Lyndon did not follow the strategy conducive for the situation. H. R. McMaster, said that, “The process of determining the means to employ must begin with a clearly stated policy goal or objective.

Senior military advisers and commanders should then develop a military strategy that contributes to or achieves that goal or objective. Then, military commanders determine the level of force necessary to carry out that strategy” 4 but during this war, Lyndon Johnson and his advisers moved according to their own whims resulting in failure. Harry Summers clearly blamed the failure of military leadership to understand the real nature of the Vietnam War. Moreover, the way the issue of such a sensitive nature was decided raised the questions on the real motive of the War itself on the domestic front.

He further stated that United States owe the failure to its incapacity to get congressional declaration of war. If it had been accomplished, the government would have gained public support and many legal sanctions to deal with their enemies.  The reason that made Vietnam War emotionally devastating for the people in general is same as that of the attacks on World Trade Center on September 11. More over, the betrayal of America in the end gave it the reputation of not being loyal to its allies. Congress was not able to fulfill the Paris Peace Accord. And now this ongoing Iraq War has further resuscitated memories of the Vietnam War. Though Vietnam and Iraq have altogether been different conflicts and different situations but there are some similarities between the two.

Two questions that come to the mind while dealing with the Iraq situation are: Firstly, was it possible to have unilateral withdrawal when Richard Nixon took over the office and secondly, did the time require to fully accomplish Nixon’s purpose weakened the capabilities of the American people to maintain the results in what ever capacity they were? 6 When Nixon was holding the office of President-ship, there were more than 500, 000 United States troops in Vietnam, and their number was continuously increasing.

Though Johnson administration had decided for the United States withdrawal after six months when North Vietnamese would withdraw, but the nature of the withdrawal was not agreed upon. There was still a doubt between the mutual withdrawal or unilateral withdrawal and no chance of diplomatic agreement could be clearly seen. Hanoi was insisting on obtaining a cease-fire but on the other Kissinger, Henry, The lessons of Vietnam: Iraq desperately needs a political solution in the short term to make the war more manageable for the next president, Hand, United States had to meet two conditions. Firstly, it had to overthrow the South Vietnamese Government, break up its police and army and form government based on Communism. Secondly, United States had to give an unconditional date and time to withdraw their troops.

At this, Nixon was faced with two issues, “Shall we leave Vietnam in a way that — by our own actions — consciously turns the country over to the communists? Or shall we leave in a way that gives the South Vietnamese a reasonable choice to survive as a free people? ” When negotiations did not come to any conclusion, Nixon administration unilaterally between 1969 and 1972 withdrew 515,000 American troops, put an end to American ground combat in 1971 and reduced causalities to considerable degrees. The major advance took place in 1972 when the United States was able to isolate Hanoi regime by mining at North Vietnam’s harbors and Hanoi got defeated by South Vietnamese helped by the United States Air force.

At this, Le Duc Tho, the principle negotiator of Hanoi accepted all the conditions placed by Nixon in 1972. The conditions at the Paris Peace agreement were, “An unconditional cease-fire and release of prisoners; continuation of the existing South Vietnamese government; continued U. S. economic and military help for it; no further infiltration of North Vietnamese forces; withdrawal of the remaining U. S. forces; and withdrawal of North Vietnamese forces from Laos and Cambodia”. This agreement made Nixon administration to believe that it was able to achieve an opportunity to give South Vietnam a chance to decide the outcome and their fate. It was believed that now Saigon government would be able to handle any violations of the agreement, United States would give all assistance on any attacks and further South Vietnam would be able to form a conducive government.

Kissinger rightly said that, “The imperatives of domestic debate the lessons of Vietnam: Iraq desperately needs a political solution in the short term to make the war more manageable for the next president, took precedence over geopolitical necessities. ” But these two basic points need specific consideration. Firstly, any strategic point cannot be fruitfully utilized unless a thorough study is undertaken on a ground root level and secondly, the decision should be a very calculated move without causing any misconceptions on the common public. In Iraq, any kind of withdrawal would only lead to more disastrous results and even political situation is also not conducive. But the most appropriate approach is to create a situation for settlement taking into differing and varying views of opposition parties and forging a conducive environment looking at the social conditions at the time.

That is the biggest lesson learnt from the mistakes during Vietnam War. Munich indirectly was responsible for the military attacks at Bosnia in 1995 and in Kosovo in 1999. Munich was an agreement signed in 1938 by the powerful nations of Europe. The Munich agreement was the basis on which America’s policy for tackling Sadam Hussain after September was based on, and the situation was very conducive to adopt the Munich policy. Robert D Kaplan, who is a national correspondent for The Atlantic, made a comparative analysis of Munich and Vietnam.

He said that, “Munich is about universalism, about taking care of the world and the lives of others, the Vietnam analogy—so prevalent following our overreach in Iraq—is domestic in spirit. ” He further said that Vietnam had its own limits but Munich’s was there to overcome these limits. But both the analogies cannot survive and can lead to dangerous consequences. The peaceful and concrete solution to any foreign policy dilemma can come to shape and fruitfully materialize only when both the analogies are treated and put to use equally.

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