NYP: 'NAM: WHAT WE WON -- America may have lost a tactical intervention in Vietnam, but ....

New York Post ^ | April 30, 2005 | THOMAS H. LIPSCOMB

[OESY]

...The object of U.S. action in South Vietnam was to stabilize Asia in general and Southeast Asia in particular. At the time, Asia was anything but stable. The former British colonies Malaysia and Singapore were under siege by Communist guerillas. The No. 2 political party in India was the growing Communist party, and Pakistan and India were still at one another's throats. Taiwan expected an assault from Red China at any moment. And China itself was suffering from Mao's "Great Leap Forward" industrialization that led to a famine that killed more than 30 million.

Indonesia under Sukarno was headed toward a "year of living dangerously" showdown with a large Communist insurgency led by overseas Chinese. The Philippines continued to have a problem with its Communist Huk rebellion. And the Korean War had ended less than a year before Dulles's statement.

Dulles wanted to save "essential parts" of Asia. America understood at the outset that it was unlikely to save all of it. And America succeeded brilliantly, both for its own interests and Asia's. It may have lost Vietnam and been unable to stop the Communist takeover that led to the death of a quarter of Cambodians in the "killing fields." But the dominos did not fall.

Only four years later, in 1979, American trade with Asia had surpassed trade with Europe....

Asian prosperity is the wonder of the 21st century and... in this brilliant company of Asian states, full partners in the global economy, the People's Republic of Vietnam remains mired in irrelevancy....

[T]he strategic consequences of that intervention were part of one of the most masterful exercises in foreign policy in modern history.

The Middle East and the United States should be so lucky as to have Iraq turn out to be "another Vietnam."

[OESY]

Thomas H. Lipscomb served as N.Y.chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Leadership Program.

[theFIRMbss]

>"The object of U.S. action in South Vietnam was to stabilize Asia in general and Southeast Asia in particular..."

SUMMARY OF VIETNAM CASUALTY STATISTICS


All US Forces KIA in Vietnam - 58,169

US Army Soldiers KIA in Vietnam - 38,190
US Army Infantrymen KIA in Vietnam - 20,460
US Army Helicopter Crewmen KIA in Vietnam - 3,007
US Army Scouts KIA in Vietnam - 1,127
US Army Tankers KIA in Vietnam - 725
US Marines Killed In Action in Vietnam - 14,836

[Joe Bonforte]

This has long been my view of Vietnam - a close, but lost, battle in the larger Cold War.

I hate that it was executed so abysmally by Kennedy and Johnson's "best and brightest". I don't see how Robert McNamara could live with himself after how he handled Vietnam (though liberals in general seem to have no trouble denying the reality of the misery they cause).

Nevertheless, as bad as the losses (people and resources) were, we could afford them while the Communists could not. From the 1960s onward, the Communists lost the ascendency and were unable to continue their press for domination, in large part because of economic reasons. The quality of their military began to decline as the WWII generation retired, and they did not have the economic or political capability to do anything about that. They also failed in the main objective of their space race (another front in the war).

Only with the distance of time can we see all the benefits - the fall of the Berlin Wall, for example, can be traced directly to causes that included our stand in Vietnam. So it will be with Iraq. We will see many positive things in the decades to come that could not have happened without the Iraq invasion.

The only unfortunate thing is that our children may never know about them, just as most people do not understand the effects of Vietnam today. The leftist historians' first sentence about the Iraq will always be how it was a war fought for "nonexistent WMD".

[ClaireSolt]

Yes, they were spinning it on c-span this morning. My own view is that objective historians may conclude that the domino theory was correct and our courageous stand made a real difference. Compare the casualties of past wars to Iraq casualties and you will see that the argument is the same, regardless of the numbers without any sense of proportion.

[OESY]

Well put! Millions died in Southeast Asia after we left, forced out when Congress cut off funding, an action led by Kerry and others. Many died needlessly as Democrats deserted their core principles for political advantage (deja vu?). Unfortunately, our generation-long "Vietnam Legacy" was a foreign policy paralysis which infected how we responded to crises in Iran, Somalia, etc.

Hopefully, bloggers who have supplanted the Old Media in writing the first draft of history will set the record straight, especially now as it is becoming clearer that Saddam evacuated his WMD to Syria just before we arrived. He was clever enough to fool the world when he had them and when he didn't, and many dupes were sucked in rather than relying on common sense.

[untenured]

On the tenth anniversary of Saigon's fall I saw former Singapore PM Lee Kuan Yew say he was surprised the Americans stayed as long as they did despite domestic opposition, and that doing so was indispensable to allowing the East Asian economic miracle to flower. Had the US never gone in or left, say, after Tet, much of SE Asia might have suffered Cambodia's fate.

[Maigrey]

The domino effect also benefited Iraq as we speak. The top brass of the military - the Marines and soldiers in the Army - were just getting into the military at the time of Vietnam, and were able to gleam what worked and what didn't when it came to intense jungle warfare. It's not too much of a stretch to change jungle guerilla tactics into urban combat tactics.

I think (no stats to prove it) that the sacrifices of the 58,000 in Vietnam provided the cost for the minimal casualties of Iraq. The military got smarter, and wiser in their ability to grow from the mistakes, and it's saved lives.

It also doesn't hurt too much to have an all-volunteer military force rather than conscripts.

[Conan the Librarian]

I have serious problems with saying that America lost in Vietnam. Like Jim Dunnigan points on on strategypage.com, in 1973, when the last American combat units left Vietnam, the Communist held less than 2% of the country, the South's Government was stable (for a Vietnamese government), and North Vietnam was in shambles.

In 1975, when the North invaded the South, that was when the South was lost. The only troops left in the South were at the Embassy.

The idea that we lost Vietnam is an Urban Legend invented by the MSM.

[MikefromOhio]

so what...???



sniff sniff....

[saminfl]

the People's Republic of Vietnam remains mired in irrelevancy....

I love that comment.

[lepton]

It also doesn't hurt too much to have an all-volunteer military force rather than conscripts.

It takes a lot of conscripts to start to make up for the disruption caused by a few conscripts.

As for the learning comments, yes: Most casualties we took in Vietnam were taken during the night...so since then we've made sure that we rule the night.

[ClaireSolt]

And, we may be in Iraq to create a reverse domino effect. The strong military presence is undoubtably contributing to the growth of democracy in the region. Somehow, it has emboldened freedom movements and made regimes circumspect. However, one must look at what is going on in the whole region, not just one country at a time.

[Chi-townChief]

Vietnam ended up as a half-victory, half-defeat in the same way that World War II ultimately ended. But now, 30 years later, our guys have made the historic Thunder Run in Baghdad while the Soviet Union and many other socialist dictatorships have been consigned to history's ash bin. And our American liberals are left babbling on about the great socialist utopia that might have been.

[Phsstpok]

This is a great piece, though the analysis isn't really new, it's nice to see it restated in a (semi) MSM newspaper amidst the propaganda crap from outlets like the NYT and PBS. NPR is actually using the phrase "The American War on Vietnam," or simply "the American War" to describe what ended 30 years ago today.

I like to use Jerry Pournelle's formulation to describe the Vietnam War as "the battle of Vietnam, which we lost, in the 70 years war with Soviet Communism, which we won." Just as we lost the first battle of the Philippines in WW2, we eventually defeated the Japanese. Both battles made significant contributions to our victories by delaying and damaging our adversaries in critical areas.

[nuke rocketeer]

Love that Pournelle! I wonder when are he and Larry Niven coming out with their next novel?

[Triggerhippie]

The idea that we lost Vietnam is an Urban Legend invented by the MSM.

???

We lost in Viet-Nam. The sympathizers at home were able to make enough noise for the weak-willed politicians to hear.

If one side quits, the other side wins.

Why haven't some of our party's leadership learned this by now, instead of apologizing to the left every chance they get?

[Phsstpok]

I wonder when are he and Larry Niven coming out with their next novel?

Pournelle had a Blog before there were blogs, it's called Chaos Manor.  He has a work in progress page, though it hasn't been updated since last September.  He mentions both the second and third books in a fantasy series with Niven, which started with The Burning City, was recently followed by The Burning Tower (released in February) and a future volume, The Burning Mountain.  He also mentions a proposal that is further out, MOONMITES with Niven (working title), though he goes on to comment:

In abeyance: may be restarted.

Novel set about 2050, near term hard science fiction of the "old Heinlein" variety. This got put back to make way for The Burning Tower. Always listen to your editors and your agent.

I just finished re-reading Footfall and Lucifer's Hammer.  Both would make excellent mini-series, though they'd both need some updating and... sanitizing... to make them palatable to mass audiences.  I'd also love to see Fallen Angels turned into a mini.  It's a true conservative/libertarian joyride, skewering all of the lefts sacred cows, particularly the greens and global warming (global warming is real, but it's the only thing keeping the ice age at bay).

[Yardstick]

*Bump!*