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A Noble Soldier, Not a Great Soldier
NRO ^ | July 22, 2005 | Mackubin Thomas Owens

Posted on 07/27/2005 2:35:35 PM PDT by neverdem

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A Noble Soldier, Not a Great Soldier

Westmoreland's Vietnam strategy ignored key considerations.

General William Westmoreland, who died earlier this week, was an honorable man and a noble soldier. But unfortunately for the United States and the late Republic of Vietnam, he was not a great soldier. Students of the Vietnam War, including many who served in the conflict, have blamed America's defeat primarily on Lyndon Johnson and his secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara. While they do bear much of the responsibility for the defeat, Gen. Westmoreland is also culpable. During his time as Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (COMUSMACV), he implemented an operational approach to the war that was destined to fail.


The Vietnamese communists followed a strategy they called dau tranh (struggle) consisting of two operational elements: dau tranh vu trang (armed struggle) and dau tranh chinh tri (political struggle). These operational elements were envisioned as a hammer and anvil or pincers designed to crush the enemy. Armed dau tranh had a strategy "for regular forces" and another for "protracted conflict." Regular-force strategy included both high tech and limited offensive warfare; protracted conflict included both Maoist and neo-revolutionary guerrilla warfare. Political dau tranh included dich van (action among the enemy), binh van (action among the military), and dan van (action among the people).


During his tenure as COMUSMACV, Westmorland focused U.S. attention on armed dau tranh, especially the part of the strategy that relied on regular forces. But he ignored political dau tranh and the "protracted conflict" element of armed dau tranh. Accordingly, he did little to train the Vietnamese army. McNamara concurred, claiming that by the time the Vietnamese were trained, the Americans would have won the war.


Westmoreland's operational strategy emphasized the attrition of the forces of the Peoples' Army of Vietnam (PAVN) forces in a "war of the big battalions": multi-battalion, and sometimes even multi-division sweeps through remote jungle areas in an effort to fix and destroy the enemy with superior fire power. The battle of the Ia Drang in November 1965 was an example of the Westmoreland's preferred approach.


The North Vietnamese planned to attack across the Central Highlands and cut South Vietnam in two, hoping to cause the collapse of the Saigon government before massive American combat power could be introduced. Ia Drang was the single bloodiest battle of the war. An under-powered U.S. Army battalion of 450 men landed in the midst of 1600 members of a PAVN regiment. There were two parts to the battle, one successful — the defense of Landing Zone X-Ray — another a debacle — the ambush of a second battalion at Landing Zone Albany — in which 155 Americans died in a 16-hour period, "the most savage one-day battle of the Vietnam War."


The battle in the Ia Drang Valley convinced Westmoreland that his concept was correct. In a head-to-head clash, an outnumbered U.S. force had spoiled an enemy operation and sent a major PAVN force reeling back in defeat. For legendary Marine general Victor H. Krulak, a critic of Westmoreland's approach, Ia Drang represented an example of fighting the enemy's war — what North Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap predicted would be "a protracted war of attrition." As Krulak noted in his book, First to Fight, a "war of attrition it turned out to be. . . . [by] 1972, we had managed to reduce the enemy's manpower pool by perhaps 25 percent at a cost of over 220,000 U.S. and South Vietnamese dead. Of these, 59,000 were Americans. . . ," not to mention the Vietnamese civilians who were in the area.


Westmoreland was critical of the Marine Corps approach in Vietnam, which unlike his own, took counterinsurgency seriously and emphasized small wars. In his memoir, A Soldier Reports, Westmoreland writes:

During those early months [1965], I was concerned with the tactical methods that General Walt and the Marines employed. They had established beachheads at Chu Lai and Da Nang and were reluctant to go outside them, not through any lack of courage but through a different conception of how to fight an anti-insurgency war. They were assiduously [sic] combing the countryside within the beachhead, trying to establish firm control in hamlets and villages, and planning to expand the beachhead up and down the coast.


He believed the Marines "should have been trying to find the enemy's main forces and bring them to battle, thereby putting them on the run and reducing the threat they posed to the population."

Krulak pointed out that the Marines employed an approach in Vietnam — the Combined Action Program — that they had first used in Haiti (1915-34), Nicaragua (1926-33), and Santo Domingo (1916-22). "Marine Corps experience in stabilizing governments and combating guerrilla forces was distilled in lecture form at the Marine Corps Schools" . . .beginning in 1920," Krulak wrote. The lectures appeared in Small Wars Manual in 1940, which was later adopted as an official publication.


According to Krulak, the Marine Corps approach in Vietnam had three elements: emphasis on pacification of the coastal areas in which 80 percent of the people lived; degradation of the ability of the North Vietnamese to fight by cutting off supplies before they left Northern ports of entry; and engagement of PAVN and V.C. main force units on terms favorable to American forces. Westmoreland, according to Krulak, made the "third point the primary undertaking, even while deemphasizing the need for clearly favorable conditions before engaging the enemy."


When Creighton Abrams replaced Westmoreland as COMUSMACV shortly after the Tet offensive, he adopted a new approach that came close to winning the war. Working closely with Ellsworth Bunker, who had assumed the post of U.S. ambassador to the Saigon government the previous spring, and William Colby, a career CIA officer who coordinated U.S. pacification efforts, the U.S. pursued something similar to the Vietnamese communist dau tranh, a unified strategy.


As Lewis Sorley, Abrams's biographer, wrote in A Better War, Bunker, Abrams, and Colby "employed diminishing resources in manpower, materiel, money, and time as they raced to render the South Vietnamese capable of defending themselves before the last American forces were withdrawn. They went about that task with sincerity, intelligence, decency, and absolute professionalism, and in the process they came very close to achieving the goal of a viable nation and a lasting peace."

For one thing, Abrams adopted an approach akin to that recommended by Krulak, emphasizing not the destruction of enemy forces per se but protection of the South Vietnamese population by controlling key areas. He then concentrated on attacking the enemy's "logistics nose" (as opposed to a "logistics tail"): Since the North Vietnamese lacked heavy transport within South Vietnam, they had to pre-position supplies forward of their sanctuaries before launching an offensive. Fighting was still heavy, as exemplified by two major actions in South Vietnam's Ashau Valley during the first half of 1969: the 9th Marine Regiment's Operation DEWEY CANYON and the 101st Airborne Division's epic battle for "Hamburger Hill," but such operations now disrupted PAVN offensive timetables and bought more time for Vietnamization.


In addition, rather than ignoring the insurgency and pushing the South Vietnamese aside as General Westmoreland had done, Abrams followed a policy of "one war," integrating all aspects of the struggle against the communists. The result, says Sorley, was "a better war" in which the United States and South Vietnamese essentially achieved the military and political conditions necessary for South Vietnam's survival as a viable political entity.


We cannot say with assurance that South Vietnam would have survived. But its chances of survival were much improved by Abram's approach. One wonders what would have happened had Westmoreland's tactics not, in Sorley's words, "squandered four years of public and congressional support for the war."

Mackubin Thomas Owens, an NRO contributing editor, is professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, RI. He led a Marine rifle platoon in Vietnam in 1968-69.


 

 
http://www.nationalreview.com/owens/owens.asp
     



TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; Politics/Elections; US: District of Columbia
KEYWORDS: generalwestmoreland; williamwestmoreland
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It's been long enough since I posted Gen. Westmoreland, Who Led U.S. in Vietnam, Dies. I would forget this critique by Owens if I waited longer.
1 posted on 07/27/2005 2:35:35 PM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem

If he thought Johnson and McNamara were wrong, he should have said so. Someone has to speak for the grunts.


2 posted on 07/27/2005 2:44:32 PM PDT by ex-snook (Protectionism is Patriotism in both war and trade.)
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To: neverdem

The real reason we lost the Vietnam War is because of useful idiots like sKerry and the weak-kneed 'Rats who were in power at the time they offered SE Asia up to the Commies on a silver platter. The blood of the resulting political carnage in the region will be forever on their hands.


3 posted on 07/27/2005 2:45:48 PM PDT by PeoplesRepublicOfWashington (Washington State--Land of Court-approved Voting Fraud.)
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To: neverdem
I'll never forget or forgive Johnson's and McNamara's edict that we not be allowed to carry any defensive weapons -- even pistols in our survival vests -- in order not to annoy the enemy. And I'll never forgive John Kerry for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

It's now 2005 and Kerry has still refused to release his 1972 Navy discharge -- the one that says "under other than honorable conditions." But I'm sure Hillary will release it when the time is right.

4 posted on 07/27/2005 2:50:16 PM PDT by pabianice
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To: PeoplesRepublicOfWashington

Bull.

The reason we lost in Vietnam was something this article alludes to.

We were so damn sure of ourselves. It never entered our minds that we could ever fail. Westmoreland was so sure of American invincibility that he didn't want "gooks" gumming up the works. That damn 60's certainty in 'rehabilitation and therapy' ending crime and poverty, in 'nation building' in the omnipotence of the state guided by therapeutic management is why we took the possibility of failure so lightly.


5 posted on 07/27/2005 3:02:40 PM PDT by Sam the Sham
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To: neverdem
Must-read analysis of the strategy, consequences and lessons of Vietnam:
Mom, Apple Pie, and the Ghost of Quagmires Past

6 posted on 07/27/2005 3:33:16 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion

Thanks for the link. I don't have time to read it now. It's my third different wake in a week.


7 posted on 07/27/2005 3:59:31 PM PDT by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: Sam the Sham
We were so damn sure of ourselves. It never entered our minds that we could ever fail.

Well, Westmoreland does deserve some blame for ignoring the 'political side', but then we Americans were used to having competent commanders-in-chief residing in the White House. LBJ was basically pursuing the Great Society while trying not to lose the Vietnam War. Trying not to lose is a sure way to do just that.

8 posted on 07/27/2005 4:01:41 PM PDT by Tallguy
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To: wardaddy; Joe Brower; Cannoneer No. 4; Criminal Number 18F; Dan from Michigan; Eaker; King Prout; ..

From time to time, I’ll ping on noteworthy articles about politics, foreign and military affairs. FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.


9 posted on 07/27/2005 4:02:39 PM PDT by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: Tallguy

I would have to say that Gen. Westmoreland had no control over dealing with the 'political side' of the communist war effort because it was waged right here in the good old USA. I spent four long, miserable years in college from 1966 to 1970 and I can tell you that the things I heard and saw made me sick.

Don't even try to tell me that there wasn't an active fifth-column in full operation on the campuses then. And it still exists. That's why the people who would like to destroy our way of life are making noises about the draft. If that came back, it would be 1968 all over again, and they know it.

I am very bitter about what some people in my generation did - and are still doing - and I pray that one day I'll live to see some of the SOB's swing from a post.


10 posted on 07/27/2005 4:12:13 PM PDT by GadareneDemoniac
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To: neverdem
Giap won the war by winning the political battle on the streets of America with the help of the press, Hoolywood and assorted left wingers.

Yes, McNamara and Johnson never had any intention of winning and yes Westmoreland neglected the politics and training of the SV.

But the lesson to be learned is the lesson taught by General Giap, America can be defeated only from within on the streets of America.

11 posted on 07/27/2005 4:15:23 PM PDT by jwalsh07
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To: neverdem
Ping bump.

No comment.



12 posted on 07/27/2005 4:32:57 PM PDT by G.Mason
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To: GadareneDemoniac; marron
I am very bitter about what some people in my generation did
Please follow the link in my #6. It's long - but Vietnam is a long story. Very impressive and inspiring work by Freeper marron.

13 posted on 07/27/2005 6:41:50 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
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To: neverdem
You have to remember that Westmoreland was a paratrooper, a soldier always will to act (or jump) before thinking.
14 posted on 07/27/2005 7:02:15 PM PDT by quadrant
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To: quadrant
You have to remember that Westmoreland was a paratrooper, a soldier always will to act (or jump) before thinking.

Don't know many senior officers, do you? While I confess I only know a couple of generals personally, I've known lots of colonels personally, and a few generals sort of second hand. Whatever faults they might have, not thinking ahead, is rarely one of them.

15 posted on 07/27/2005 8:19:59 PM PDT by El Gato
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To: neverdem

Thanks for the ping.


16 posted on 07/27/2005 8:59:47 PM PDT by GOPJ (A person who will lie for you, will lie against you.)
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To: neverdem

Thanks for the ping!


17 posted on 07/27/2005 9:02:35 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Sam the Sham

Nice try, but your perspective ignores history. A peace was negotiated successfully and enforced with a promise to be upheld by US bombing. When the commies broke the treaty (what? lefties lying?) by invading the South, the 'Rats voted to prohibit expenditures to enforce the treaty. The result--the long-dreaded domino effect occurred, and millions lost their lives at the hands of the Democratic Party of the United States. Deal with it.


18 posted on 07/27/2005 9:10:44 PM PDT by PeoplesRepublicOfWashington (Washington State--Land of Court-approved Voting Fraud.)
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To: neverdem

Bull.

In two weeks you are in Hanoi, Vietnam is unified, and the communists are reduced to scattered bands in the hills and their "strategy" means diddly.

Ever see "Bambi vs. Godzilla"?


19 posted on 07/27/2005 9:17:58 PM PDT by UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide (Give Them Liberty Or Give Them Death! - IT'S ISLAM, STUPID! - Islam Delenda Est! - Rumble thee forth)
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To: UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide
Bull.

In two weeks you are in Hanoi, Vietnam is unified, and the communists are reduced to scattered bands in the hills and their "strategy" means diddly.

Ever see "Bambi vs. Godzilla"?

I have no idea what you mean.

20 posted on 07/27/2005 10:11:35 PM PDT by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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