Vietnam: We Could Have Won

I wrote this article some time ago, but I'm reposting it now because it's my belief that the larger lessons of the war in Vietnam hold relevance to the unconventional wars we are engaged in today. Coherent strategy and an awareness of the kind of war that you are fighting remain the principal keys to a successful outcome in warfare.

Today, three and a half decades after our withdrawal from Vietnam, it may be constructive to look back and ask if the U.S. military ever discovered the elements of a strategy in South Vietnam that, given the proper circumstances, might have achieved American objectives. Had those elements and circumstances existed how could they have been combined into a strategy that could have served American objectives at an acceptable cost? In retrospect, that is, how could we have won?

During the eight years from 1965 to 1972, America's involvement in Vietnam fluctuated from massive escalation to gradual withdrawal. American strategy also wavered in its approach, from unilateral U.S. "Search and Destroy" tactics designed to atrit the enemy, to combined "Clear and Hold" operations which focused on pacification programs and Vietnamization. A number of critics continue to declare our defeat in Vietnam as predestined, citing a milieu of political, military and cultural factors which contributed to our defeat. However ruinous our involvement ultimately was, our defeat should not be regarded as preordained: just as American intervention was decisive in prolonging the war by postponing a North Vietnamese victory, America's defeat was ultimately determined by its own strategic failures during those eight crucial years. Ultimately, Hanoi's multi-faceted strategy of insurgency and protraction proved an elusive target for America's rather one-dimensional strategy of attrition.

A revised alternate strategy, incorporating those elements which proved successful from 1965 to 1972 could very well have achieved U.S. policy objectives at an acceptable cost. More specifically, a revised Limited Shield/Pacification strategy incorporating the vital elements of strategic defensive operations, an expanded Demographic Frontier Program, accelerated Vietnamization, diplomacy and limited offensive operations could be effectively combined in a comprehensive strategy, and applied in three phases: Reversal of the Insurgency (Phase I); Diplomacy and Vietnamization (Phase II); and, Limited Offensive Operations and Settlement (Phase III). Had a Limited Shield/ Pacification Strategy been employed at the outset, it is possible that a viable and enduring peace settlement could have been reached by 1972 and an American defeat in Vietnam could have been averted.

The Nature of the War and its Strategic Dilemmas: Too Little Too Late or Too Much Too Soon?

In his book, The 25-Year War, General Bruce Palmer describes the Vietnam War as "...a devilishly clever mixture of conventional warfare fought somewhat unconventionally and guerilla warfare fought in the classical manner." While Hanoi was waging a total war against colonialism, Americans perceived it as a limited war to contain communism. General Westmoreland's strategy of attrition scripted the Vietnam Conflict as a war of strength, mobility and firepower; yet from Hanoi's perspective, it was nothing less than a war of national will and survival.

In the final analysis, it seems clear that in addition to conducting an insurgency, Hanoi had decided in the face of massive U.S. intervention to add yet another component to their strategy: protraction and sustained enervation. Our decision to remain on the strategic defensive for the duration of the war amounted to a tacit acquiescence in Hanoi's strategy and allowed North Vietnam to control the pace of the war.

1965-1968: America Takes Charge.

From 1965 to 1968, America's primary strategic enterprise was taking charge of the war in South Vietnam from the South Vietnamese Armed Forces (SVAF). Under General Westmoreland, "Search and Destroy" operations and the ROLLING THUNDER bombing campaign became the cornerstones to our strategy of attrition. Political constraints (fear of Chinese/Soviet intervention) led to the Johnson Administration’s decision to conduct a strategic defense of South Vietnam that was to become both costly and protracted. During this period, U.S. troops were successful in rescuing the SVAF, which were at the brink of collapse in the summer of 1965.

As the U.S. built up ground, air and naval forces in the region, however, we committed our first error of omission by failing to address the long-term problem of helping the SVAF and Government of Vietnam (GVN) to become self-sufficient. The limited American effort to mold the SVAF into a conventional army in its own image only served to make them "incongruent with the culture it was trying to defend" and dependent upon the U.S. for continued support. It is a bitter irony that while the U.S. did come to the immediate rescue of the SVAF, by our own subsequent actions we were inadvertently condemning them to a long-term catastrophic defeat.

America's first extensive air interdiction campaign, named ROLLING THUNDER, inexorably expanded our role in the war and further solidified the primacy of our attrition strategy. Approved on 13 February 1965, ROLLING THUNDER was successful in inflicting extensive damage on Hanoi's military installations, industrial complex and transportation network, but ultimately failed in destroying North Vietnam's war-making capability as it had originally set out to do. The gradual application of the bombing strategy, compounded by the bombing halt of November 1968 also proved to be counterproductive, yet was based on an overwhelming concern over Chinese intervention. Perhaps the greatest cost of the strategic bombing campaign was the dissent it generated at home and abroad. In the end, ROLLING THUNDER emerged as a strategic failure for the United States and a political windfall for Hanoi.

The first integrated civil-military approach to pacification in South Vietnam was not in place until 1967, two years after we took over the war. Programs like the U.S. Army Special Forces' Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) program, the Marine Corps' Combined Action Platoon (CAP) program and the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) program were eventually successful in limiting Viet Cong infrastructures within village and hamlet areas, and in providing security to the South Vietnamese population. Shelby Stanton describes the value of the CIDG program in his book Green Berets at War:

[Special Forces] had mobilized the tribal groups and oppressed minorities of South Vietnam in remote areas and had organized them into dozens of the camp forces fighting for the allies. These had protected the small villages most vulnerable to armed attack, patrolled the highly dangerous North Vietnamese infiltration routes and Viet Cong base areas, monitored the borders, and served as conventional infantry in open battles. This difficult task was achieved despite the reluctance of the Saigon regime and the open hostility of a MACV Commander [General Abrams].

Although the CIDG, CORDS and CAP programs were not without their flaws, they were the only truly effective strategy which produced substantive results in the counterinsurgency war. But this success, too, was fleeting. As villages and hamlets became free-fire zones and peasant populations were forced to become refugees, the CORDS Program became the de facto instrument which validated our attrition strategy, causing Pacification to effectively become hostage to Attrition.

1969-1972: America "Hurls" the Torch.

America's phased withdrawal from Vietnam followed in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive and President Nixon's election. From 1968 to 1972, U.S. troop levels decreased from 543,400 to 24,000. Despite Hanoi's outright defeat during the Tet Offensive and at Khe Sanh, declining U.S. domestic and international support empowered them, and the North entered the Paris Peace Negotiations in a position of political strength. Coinciding with the assumption of President Nixon to office, General Creighton Abrams replaced General Westmoreland as the MACV Commander. The new elements of American strategy included: an Accelerated Pacification Campaign, Vietnamization, the LINEBACKER bombings, mining North Vietnamese harbors, and a new approach to population and territorial security, known as "Clear and Hold." Our blanket strategy of attrition, however, remained unchanged.

The LINEBACKER bombing campaigns, combined with the mining of North Vietnam's harbors, tactical air support and a naval interdiction program in the South were successful in placing Hanoi on the defensive, and its populace on the brink of starvation. Finally faced with a credible threat, Hanoi was forced to negotiate and make a series of concessions that, in the absence of these limited offensive operations, would otherwise not have been possible. Nonetheless, rapidly eroding American support for the war following Tet masked--and effectively subverted--any headway achieved by South Vietnam during the early years of this period by speeding up our withdrawal. Vietnamization, therefore, while originally designed to buttress South Vietnam’s will and ability to resist, had precisely the opposite effect. Denied the evolutionary process of developing and training its force from the outset, South Vietnam's inability to independently defend itself was starkly demonstrated during the Easter Offensive led by the Peoples Army of [North] Vietnam (PAVN) in 1972.

Pacification was ultimately undercut by MACV's preeminent war of attrition and the rush to Vietnamize the war. Vietnamization received its final death knell with the Paris Peace Agreements. Both Pacification and Vietnamization, although they were well-conceived, were time intensive—when time itself was at a premium. Both programs--designed to enhance the self-sufficiency of the Vietnamese—were initiated too late, and therefore remained unfinished processes.

AN ALTERNATE STRATEGY MODEL

In retrospect, were our mistakes in Vietnam preventable had we applied a different strategy at the outset? Authors like Gaddis Smith, John Prados, and Eric Bergerud have submitted indistinguishable, captious "no-win" scenarios; others who have answered "yes," have arrived at widely divergent winning strategies focusing almost solely either on the conventional war (as Harry Summers did in his book, On Strategy), or the insurgency in South Vietnam (as Andrew Krepinevich does with The Army and Vietnam). However elegant and influential their analyses, each of these authors erred at the beginning by failing to properly assess the true nature of the war. Of all the definitions, General Palmer's "devilish mixture" assessment of the Vietnam War remains perhaps the most salient and accurate. Through the lens of General Palmer’s trenchant definition, it is clear that an alternate strategy addressing both the conventional and unconventional nature of the war in Vietnam could have been developed and would have favorably influenced the war’s outcome.

With the benefit of hindsight, then, we can consider one strategy that could have been applied in three principal phases:

Phase I. The first phase would strengthen the Vietnamese Armed Forces (VNAF) through tailored advisory and material support, thus obviating the need for large- scale Vietnamization at a later date. A second strategic imperative of this phase would prevent NVA infiltration to the South using combined VNAF-MNF strategic defensive operations along the DMZ and the Laotian-Cambodian borders. Finally, reversing the VC/PAVN insurgency in the South would be accomplished through self-sustaining GVN-U.S. "Clear and Hold" operations and Demographic Frontier Programs-- the centerpiece of a Limited Shield/Pacification strategy.

Expanding South Vietnam's enclaves through an enhanced CORDS program in conjunction with the CIDG and CAP programs in the Hamlets would transform the Vietnamese populace from a critical vulnerability to an inherent strength for the GVN. Replacing our "Search and Destroy" tactics with the "Clear and Hold" operations long advocated by General Victor Krulak would sustain the emphasis on applying force economically and in a concentrated fashion to protect, rather than to disrupt, Vietnamese hamlets.
Yet another step would involve providing a "limited shield" between South Vietnam and North Vietnam, as well as along known infiltration routes from neighboring Laos and Cambodia. This "shield" would have consisted of a combined, integrated SVAF-MNF force, concentrated along the DMZ, and "extended into Laos across the narrow waist of the panhandle region." Drawing upon the Demographic Frontier Strategy described by Andrew Krepinevich,

Special Forces units would [be] used as strike teams just beyond the frontier, detecting any attempts by the enemy to concentrate his forces for an attack on the populated region. Sufficient main force units would [be] kept in reserve to blunt any enemy attempt to launch a major conventional assault against the pacification program.

The MNF force in Laos, would necessarily be composed of non-combatant (UN security) forces, ostensibly emplaced to enforce the neutrality treaty signed by North Vietnam and Laos.

Phase II. In an effort to isolate North Vietnam politically, Hanoi's alliance system could be "attacked" with an accelerated U.S. diplomatic strategy aimed at securing Detente with Russia and China. Once the Vietnamese Armed Forces were sufficiently invigorated, reasonably capable of conducting their own internal defense, and the GVN was clearly able to negotiate from a minimum position of parity, the GVN would negotiate with Hanoi for an end to hostilities. With its alliance system already severely weakened, Hanoi would be presented with the costly alternative of an expanded war on its own soil.

Assuming enhanced public support for the war under these conditions, a compelling case can be made that the combined application of Vietnamization, pacification and negotiation with North Vietnam—properly coordinated and balanced—would have been the best strategy then available to meet American objectives at an acceptable cost.

Phase III. In the event Phase II negotiations failed or were abrogated by Hanoi, a limited strategic offensive would have been executed by the Multinational Force (MNF) to compel a viable peace settlement. This phase would involve: a combined MNF limited ground offensive into North Vietnam to the Twentieth Parallel; mining North Vietnam's harbors; and an extended strategic supply/force interdiction (LINEBACKER/SEALORDS) campaign supported by ARVN forces on the ground. A second attempt to negotiate with Hanoi would then be made from an unassailable position of strength.

In a concerted effort to achieve surprise and shock value against Hanoi, a limited ground, air and naval offensive would apply massed strength at decisive points. The ground offensive would be a limited but aggressive one, stopping its advance at the 20th Parallel, short of Hanoi, and aiming to liberate all known POW camps in the North. Although the political risks of such a strategy are manifest, the overriding danger of strategic miscalculation would be dramatically diminished when combined with the U.S. policy of Detente with the Chinese and Soviets pursued by Nixon and Kissinger. The multinational composition of a forces arrayed along North Vietnam's southern border into Laos would also lend political legitimacy to this strategy.

A variety of other risks relating to public support of the war accompany this strategy. Of course, the risk of sustaining heavy casualties with a limited ground/amphibious offensive would be a political and military consideration to be assessed and mitigated against. Such an invasion would represent an escalation of the war that the American public and international community may or may not support, given the risks and the ultimate cost in lives. It is assumed, however, support for the war would not have degraded to the extent it had, if Phase I of this strategy were executed successfully. The value of a limited offensive, moreover, explained in the context of ending the war on our terms, would likely attract support and significantly boost morale. While it is possible that Hanoi could retain the will to continue the war, such a decision seems unlikely once it found its alliance structure shattered and saw its national survival threatened; and particularly when, as an alternative, Hanoi's leadership could choose to settle for the status quo ante.

Of course, no one can say with any certainty that an alternate strategy, however well-devised, could have succeeded in Vietnam. Faced with an adversary that refused to fight on our own terms, the war ground to a stalemate. Ultimately, Hanoi's strategy of protraction prevailed when the war was no longer palatable to the American people and we were left with no choice but to withdraw. A host of military, political and "environmental" factors exposed both the inherent weaknesses of our strategy and the superiority of our adversary's strategy.

In hindsight, it was perhaps our failure to reassess our strategy, and to realize that Hanoi's strength was a mirror image of own critical vulnerabilities that caused our defeat. In order to attack North Vietnam’s strategy effectively, we would have been compelled to strengthen the collective U.S./Vietnamese will and capability to fight a protracted unconventional war. Our failure represented a total collapse of the classic Clausewitzian Trinity, yet it seems the overriding factor was South Vietnam's dependency upon our presence to survive. The Johnson Administration’s critical failure represented a series of critical omissions forced upon South Vietnam, but it is also evident that the United States plunged headlong into the morass by eliminating the possibility of South Vietnam playing a primary role in its own defense. In retrospect, we would have done well to heed the advice of Sir Thomas Lawrence (of Arabia):

"Better they do it imperfectly than you do it perfectly; for it is their country, their war, and your time is limited."

Glossary of Acronyms

ARVN Army of the Republic of Vietnam
CAP Combined Action Platoon (USMC)
CIDG Civilian Irregular Defense Group
CORDS Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support
GVN Government of Vietnam (South)
MNF Multi-National Force
PAVN Peoples Army of Vietnam (North)
SVAF South Vietnamese Armed Forces