I agree. Especially if the Communist Party had become The Socialist Party, and gradually allowed the privatization of property from the bottom up, as opposed to the top down. I think unfortunately, the Oligarchs were chosen over the “mom & pop stores” (small businesses) causing a shock from which my basic understanding is that Russia is only just recovering from…
Okay, I’ll admit saying that “we won the cold war! USA! USA!” is a bit simplistic. But the West did withstand a serious threat from communism in the form of third world liberation movements and the like.
There is substantial evidence that the Soviet system was really beginning to gradually implode as early as Kruschev’s tenure. It is known that those, even amongst the most ardently ideological in the Kremlin, were beginning to realize that the command economy simply did not work well in peace time, and that economic crisis was becoming endemic and perpetual. Perhaps there were some that thought the only way out was a direct military confrontation with the West?
Just speculation, that’s all…
Egorka once accused me of habit. At first I misundertood his point, then I came to realize that he was speaking of cultural habit. Again, that is something that I rebel against, but I still find myself, at times, of being guilty of it. it’s really about stepping back and taking a broader view.
You know, it’s funny. I mod another board, where right wing conservative bush-loving assholes have accused me of being a “communist,” or a “jihadist.”
Then I read some of my statements on this board which perhaps put me as a “nationalist,” more in line with Reagan. :shock: Oooof!
I certainly do not buy the crock that ‘Reagan won the Cold War’ or that the West was militarily weak and ‘defenseless’ until 1981. Both assertions are patently false as the US build-up was in a sense continual, but interfered with by Vietnam. And intelligence factions continually exaggerated Soviet military power and sustainability. Nixon, Ford, and Carter all funded new weapons systems that were themselves a direct result of the experience of the Vietnam War. While Vietnam did irreparable damage to the US Army, which may have had its ‘golden age’ between the mid-point of Korea (about 1952) and about 1968.
I think my comments also have to do with the fact that many in America, and in the West in general, view Vietnam as merely a humiliating defeat that made America look a weak paper tiger. My alternative view is grown out of a realization that to our potential enemies, even our military ‘quagmires’ can be interpreted as a sign of strength. (I’ve even heard speculation that the US, and even the Japanese, involvement in Iraq has disconcerted the Chinese gov’t.) The US still demonstrated enormous firepower in Vietnam. Something that was of only limited use against an agrarian society, but still a huge problem, as the fact is that the Soviets would have to contend with if they ever struck into West Germany, where artillery and air strikes would have been far more effective against a mechanized army advancing on an open plain. Then, there is the Korean War…
If you watch the film “Pork Chop Hill,” you’ll notice that it is an allegory for the final days of the UN/US involvement in the Korean War, a period of extremely contentious negotiations between obstinate, politically determined Chinese and NK negotiators and the US/UN contingent, which were operating on more conventional notions of Western diplomacy. But, the final phase of Korea, after about the midpoint of 1951 or so, was dominated by what amounted to static warfare punctuated by periodic mini-offensives conducted by both sides. The premise was that the Chinese were continually “testing” the US to see if it was willing to do more than just kill PLA soldiers through vastly superior firepower. The senior US officers soon came to the conclusion that real question was: “Was the United States prepared to sacrifice its men for what amounted to strategically worthless hills, merely to make a political point.” And so, men were by-in-large sent to their deaths and ordered to hold territory that was pretty much useless in order to do little more than to show that the US was indeed willing to accept casualties. Whether or not Vietnam was a continuation of this notion, I can’t say with any certainty. But I can say that Vietnam showed that the US gov’t WAS willing to sacrifice its young men in futile causes.
What impact this had, no one can say for certain. But you’ll have a hard time convincing me that there was no impact. And I will also say that it was never worth it in the end…
dupe.
There is a limit to everything, including self-flagellation. 
The US still demonstrated enormous firepower in Vietnam. Something that was of only limited use against an agrarian society, but still a huge problem, as the fact is that the Soviets would have to contend with if they ever struck into West Germany, where artillery and air strikes would have been far more effective against a mechanized army advancing on an open plain.
I think that’s one of the things that’s at the heart of America’s problems in its post-WWII military adventures and associated, for want of a better word, diplomacy.
Coming as I do from a small nation that had to learn to use its very limited resources against much larger enemies which resulted in an entirely different type of military doctrine and tactics to those that America as a superpower could evolve, it seems to me that America has consistently put too much emphasis on the aggressive part of Teddy Roosevelt’s dictum “Speak softly and carry a big stick”.
So far as the military aspect went in Vietnam, a lot of the problem was that America relied on massive firepower, which had been devastating in Europe and the Pacific in WWII, against an elusive enemy which wasn’t all that susceptible to it.
We’ve seen the same thing in Iraq in a different fashion, where America, with a bit of help from its mates, creamed Saddam in the conventional war because of its massive firepower, but can’t win against irregular forces because it didn’t anticipate their impact or work out how to defeat them as part of its war plans (not invading Iraq would have defeated them before they even looked like resisting the invaders).
Just like Vietnam, but for a whole set of different reasons, America (with a bit of help from its mates) is now bogged down in Iraq in something it created; doesn’t really understand; to which it has no military solution; and to which its President’s only response is to increase the military commitment in the hope of solving insoluble problems in Iraq and marginally less insoluble political problems in America.
It’s not an accident that, even allowing for the Americans in Vietnam and Iraq being in hotter spots than their mates, the Australians and Koreans in Vietnam and the British and Australians in Iraq managed to deal with their areas of operation more effectively militarily and ultimately more harmoniously with the local populations, even if they had to give them a flogging first to get their attention.
One reason that American forces didn’t achieve the same results was that their military doctrine was based on massive firepower. This in turn was derived from America’s successful WWII experience and the application to war of America’s massive industrial resources and desire to avoid casualties. It was consolidated by gearing up for a European land war 1945 onwards with conventional forces in European geography.
Meanwhile America fought its most significant wars in Korea and Vietnam on different geography and, in Vietnam, against forces that didn’t bear any relation to anything that American military doctrine was designed to deal with.
Despite all that, America didn’t learn that just because you’re the biggest bloke on the block, it doesn’t mean that pygmies who keep firing darts at you from the alleys won’t win.
So now it’s stuck in Iraq, with lots of alleys and lots of pygmies in them.
Privatisation of property means ownership, does it not? Bit of a culture clash there. Was it not ownership by the few, when the majority were still in a semi-feudal society tha gave rise to the revolution in the first instance?
I could say that you would have a hard time convincing me that any good came from the war, but that would just be silly. One has to keep faith with that in which one believes. If one were to say nothing came out of it, then one would have to say that those people died in vain - who wants to say that?
Not my intention to prove or disprove the positive or negative impact of the Vietnam War. Just wanted to get away from the ‘we kicked your butts’ mentality.
Would recommend: ‘Vietnam’ by Christian G. Appy.
Lots of personal stories there, including one from the Grandson of the fellow who wrote ‘Pork Chop Hill’. There are also stories from former VC and NVA. One Marine reckons that the war could have ended in 1969 and that the further twenty five thousand American fatalities, which followed, were a waste.
Another criticizes ‘search and destroy’ as a strategy, and says that ‘hearts and minds’ should have been pursued more vigorously. Lots of opinions based on personal experience, but none of them actually prove anything. It just illustrates the complexity of the war.
We do hear that the qualities of the US forces which were sent there in 1965 were of a higher standard than those that followed later. Perhaps this is due to the draft and the way the war was waged. Again, a fault which can be placed at the doors of the Pentagon and the WHite House rather than in the hands of the soldiers who performed their duty. My own thoughts are that those that formulated strategy betrayed their people by not keeping an open mind on how to prosecute the war and, instead, shackled themselves to doctrine.
By the way, I happened accross the site you mentioned, some time ago.
Have to agree with Chevan, regarding Afghanistan. I was going to mention it, but he beat me to it.
Re: the early sixties - Cuba had a big impact on the psyche of western governments and played no small part in convincing the US that they must call a halt to the spread of communism - Dominos.
I was referring to a gradual transition from autocratic communism to a mixed economy of democratic socialism in which the major industries stayed within the hands of the gov’t, at least for a time, while entrepreneurs would be allowed to establish the basis of an open economy starting with small businesses. Ideally, this would have averted the catastrophes of the oligarchs and the polarized wealth in the country. Not unlike what is happening in China, only with an actual democratic gov’t…
They did mostly die in vain. Mostly…
Not my intention to prove or disprove the positive or negative impact of the Vietnam War. Just wanted to get away from the ‘we kicked your butts’ mentality.
I don’t think I tend to exude that mentality, but okay…
Would recommend: ‘Vietnam’ by Christian G. Appy.
Lots of personal stories there, including one from the Grandson of the fellow who wrote ‘Pork Chop Hill’. There are also stories from former VC and NVA. One Marine reckons that the war could have ended in 1969 and that the further twenty five thousand American fatalities, which followed, were a waste.
Another criticizes ‘search and destroy’ as a strategy, and says that ‘hearts and minds’ should have been pursued more vigorously. Lots of opinions based on personal experience, but none of them actually prove anything. It just illustrates the complexity of the war.
I’ve read quite a bit on Vietnam, though I’ll check his book. Of course everything stated is true to an extent. The war was very complex, and essentially was a “two front” war in which the US fought an insurgency of the National Liberation Front (NLF or ‘Viet Cong’) and the regular formations of the North Vietnamese Army…
Some have argued that the US and their South Vietnamese allies essentially marginalized the NLF, if not nearly defeated it, through the “Operation Phoenix” program dreamt up by William Colby of the CIA. And that the program (which essentially turned into a bloody assassination and terror pogrom not unlike what the NLF had been doing to the Saigon regime’s representatives since the late 1950s) was very successful to an extent.
And yes, conventional, heavy-handed military strategies were foolhardy in a counterinsurgency situation (something the US Army is just rediscovering with Gen. Petraeus in Iraq).
But it came down to the simple fact that Vietnam was essentially a civil war, and the US, for all its firepower, can not “win” someone else’s civil war. They had to do it themselves, we should have seen that they were completely incapable much sooner than we did…
We do hear that the qualities of the US forces which were sent there in 1965 were of a higher standard than those that followed later. Perhaps this is due to the draft and the way the war was waged. Again, a fault which can be placed at the doors of the Pentagon and the WHite House rather than in the hands of the soldiers who performed their duty. My own thoughts are that those that formulated strategy betrayed their people by not keeping an open mind on how to prosecute the war and, instead, shackled themselves to doctrine.
The decline of the US Army had to do with conscripts fighting an extremely unpopular war, drugs, and a systemic breakdown of discipline, and of course the fools who planned the thing…
By the way, I happened accross the site you mentioned, some time ago.
Interesting…Ever post?
I agree with 90% of your post -but-
The British are in (what were anyway) ‘quiet sectors’ of mostly Shiites that hated Saddam, and were more appreciative, if very dubious, of the effort to get rid of him.
There is NO comparison between this and the American experience of dealing with the Sunni Triangle, or the sectarian wars going on all over the country, and especially Baghdad. Though the war-plan was completely fucked (with only about 60% of the troops called for being sent!) and the fact that there was NO plan for what happened after “we broke it,” there were in fact visionary US Army, Marine, and sp. ops. commanders that, for instance, temporarily quelled Sunni areas like Tikrit and Ramadi (initially) by working WITH the Sunnis rather than trying to intimidate them.
Unfortunately, these were too few and far between, and their work was quickly undone by “hard asses” that ‘thought’ that alienating the populations by kicking in doors and ignoring what their troops did was the answer.
Read the book “Fiasco” by Thomas E. Ricks for more info…
And as for the rest of the British Army’s counterinsurgency experience of the last sixty years, well they operated in areas where there were few TV cameras or people asking questions. That is until there was Northern Ireland, and that one took a while, didn’t it?
Because it’s remembered now for the assassination aspects, it’s forgotten in most quarters that Phoenix was actually a much broader and quite good counter insurgency plan.
Your comment in response to my last post about the hard asses in Iraq stuffing up another good plan applies equally to Phoenix.
Aggressive military action probably can’t win against insurgents by itself if they have strong popular support.
Nahh, this site takes up too much of my time as it is. I try to keep away, but what you chaps post is just such compelling reading, I find myself unable to resist the odd comment.
One thing I would add regarding Vietnam and my coments: the Vietnamese were not the enemy of Britain, as such, though at the time it was going on, my loyalties were towards our cousins accross the water, and some of the comments which I might post now, I would have considered to be disloyal at the time. However, a lot of time as passed by since then, and so I look at it in more of an historical context.
We often ignore the Vietnamese in our dicussions, beyond the fact that they were the enemy - but they did overcome.
Here’s what Bill Shanahan, the author of ‘Stealth Patrol’ says of them:
During the two years I spent in Vietnam I saw a lot of action - a lot of highs and a lot of lows - but the one thing I saw that just never changed was the enemy. I went from the line company to the Lurps, made the transition to the Rangers, and spent months and months humpin’ some of the most hostile territory in the land. And the one constant, throughout it all, was the enemy. They were elusive, they were a mystery - but above all, they were just always there.
The Vietnamese had been fighting over that land for hundreds of years - previously with the French and before them the Japanese and the Chinese - and through that entire time they’d never been defeated. They had a mindset that was just doggedly determined, the sort of commitment that could only come from someone with a passionate belief in what he was doing - in their case, fighting for control of their homeland.
Our guys had the best technology, there was no doubt about that. We had choppers, rifles, grenades, mines, artillery, planes, ships, tanks - anything you could think of, we had it - but those guys had the commitment. They had the willingness and the drive to see the war through to its end, no matter how long it took. They’d lost no telling how many men, and yet they still continued to fight - and as far as I could tell, were in no hurry to quit.
Quite true. The North Vietnamese fielded some of the finest infantry the world has ever seen.
I’m currently reading “Fiasco,” in which the Vietnam comparison crops up frequently. Here’s a relevant passage:
Retired Army Colonial Harry Summers, Jr. began On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War, perhaps the most influential book to come out of the conflict, by recounting an exchange he had had in Hanoi on April 25, 1975, with a North Vietnamese Colonial.
‘You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield,’ Summers said.
The North Vietnamese officer considered this assertion for a moment, and then responded, ‘That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.’ Hanoi’s center of gravity (the main focus of the “enemies” war effort and ability to resist) had not been on the battlefield.
“Fiasco,” by Thomas E. Ricks (pg. 131)
They endured, “It is not those who can inflict the most but those who can endure the most who will conquer.”
I already knew of the ‘irrelevant’ comment, Nick. One could draw parallels with the American war of independence.
If you are interested in gaining a true insight into the Vietnamese attitude, you couldn’t do better than reading ‘The War of the Flea’ by Robert Taber (if you haven’t read it already), it pretty much explains all.
I have spotted ‘Fiasco’ on the book shelves, but haven’t been tempted, as yet, mainly due to the amount of other books I’m reading. I’m sure I’ll get around to it in the not too distant future.
I saw a recent documentary in which an Englishmen/host did just that, with annoying frequency.
If you are interested in gaining a true insight into the Vietnamese attitude, you couldn’t do better than reading ‘The War of the Flea’ by Robert Taber (if you haven’t read it already), it pretty much explains all.
I’ll seek it out…
I have spotted ‘Fiasco’ on the book shelves, but haven’t been tempted, as yet, mainly due to the amount of other books I’m reading. I’m sure I’ll get around to it in the not too distant future.
It’s a fascinating study of how all of the lessons of Vietnam were lost in such quick order by the US military, and what a bunch of shortsighted cunts we elected…
I served 4 years in that war. for me to say they died in vain would dishonor them. you have comfort of 20-20 hinsight.
when we came home we didn’t give a good god damned what anyone thought
and we still don’t
Well i think that here everybody should speak that’s why i am writing this . I know few of Vietnam War but from the things i read in the books and saw in the movies , from my part , yes i think they did . For me , every attack war with no reason , because i think Vietnam War had no reason , and the casualties of these wars are with no reason .
I hope you understand what i am writing
Everyone still dies anyway. Death at war can’t be more in vain than death from natural causes at peace.
I think it can.
An 20 year old conscript dying to no good purpose in a country that doesn’t matter to his instead of dying at home of natural causes 60 years later with his children and grandchildren around him is a waste, a death in vain in the sense of futile, pointless, of no value.
Where was the point in Americans and others on that side dying in Vietnam to prop up a corrupt South Vietnamese government while their own governments didn’t give them the means to fight the war properly and in fact hamstrung them from doing so for domestic and international political reasons?
Not to mention the poor bloody South Vietnamese grunts and civilians who bore the brunt of the war.
What is the point of getting involved in a war that doesn’t have as its objective the defeat of the enemy, and won’t allow the military to do that?
Contrast that with lives lost fighting the Nazis or the Japanese, which were lost in pursuit of a clear objective of defeating the enemy instead of, as in Vietnam, just starting out by maintaining the status quo of supporting the crooks running SVN and then, at the executive government rather than military level, having no idea what to do as things started spin out of control.
If the same pussy footing approach taken to hammering and invading and defeating North Vietnam had been employed in WWII, the Allies would still be in England and Saipan, begging the enemy to surrender.
What do yo mean to fight the war properly mate?
Somebody prevented the Americans destroy the enemy?Or didn’t let them to use the “proper” wearpon like a-bomb?