Ian McColgin
12-19-2005, 09:33 AM
The Administration is now touting a three-pronged security strategy for Iraq: "Clear, Hold and Build." And everyone who wants to look hip has a copy of Lewis Sorley's "A Better War" negligently placed on a desk or table for his or her superiors to see.
Sorely argued that when General Abrams replaced Westmoreland's "search and destroy" with his own "clear and hold," the US won the Vietnam War. He also claims that the South Vietnamese only then lost because the US denied them funding.
Sorely's analysis is quite different from my own and from such greater experts than I such as David Elliott ("The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta, 1930-1975") or William Turley (The Second Indochina War, 1954-1975") or North Vietnam's General Le Ngoc Hien or R.S. MacNamara.
TheTet Offensive, central to Sorely's thesis, was a military expense to North Vietnam and the Viet Cong. It looked like a military mistake in that the disaffected peasants of the south did not just rise up in rebellion. Sorely seems to argue two things at once here. Firstly, he sees Tet as a US victory, so sacking the ever-optimistic Westmoreland for Abrams seems dubious, but also he does much tout Abrams "clear and hold."
Many conventional historians see Tet as a problem for the North, to say the least, and view Abrams' more rational use of air and artillery as improvements that "came too late. Let's really look at Tet and the subsequent "clear and hold."
Tet did not do what Gen. Le Ngoc Hien planned but he still regards it as his victory because he shares the belief that Tet eliminated the US will to fight. Tet sure brought a lot about the war home, but given that we kept on for about a year and a half longer than our entire involvement in WWII and at considerable lower casualties, I don't really believe it was simply about "will to fight."
Tet did show that there was actually no price that North Vietnam would not pay. It got rid of one loosing US strategy and replaced it with another, for "clear and hold" did more clearing than holding. And that clearing was a hugely genocide exercise that completely disrupted the society and economy of Vietnam - as if it'd not been demolished enough - leaving no social basis for the South to ever win. Far from winning the war, clear and hold guaranteed the South's defeat
One additional salutary side effect of Tet that no North Vietnamese leaders have acknowledged: Tet killed a lot of Viet Cong. Regardless of initial high motivation, great moral and all that good stuff, demobilized guerrillas are an incredible problem in peacetime. The slaughter of the Viet Cong and their replacement by regular army troops inevitably eased the North's problems of governance after 1975.*
"Clear and hold" did not work both because the tide of history was against the side we backed and because it was only clear, not hold. "Clear, Hold and Build" is not much better for several reasons. Firstly, we're not much more likely to really do all three than Abrams was able to do but two.
More importantly, "clear, hold and build" gets the reality of civil strife just about backwards. Guerrillas are defeated when the society in general is moving to prosperity and justice. They are defeated when the most dynamic part of a society, the "have some and want more" people believe in the social process. That's what marginalizes and criminalizes the "insurgent" or revolutionary elements.
If the elected government can actually enable fair opportunities for most Iraqi's, it stands a chance. If it just hangs out while our troops blast holes in cities, establish perimeters for car bombers to aim at, and maybe string a few miles of electric line, the Iraqis and the US will fail.
# # #
*This savage insight initiated for me with my work with Vietnam War vets and Khmer orphans. It's been rounded out by historical studies of war's aftermath, especially where there were large numbers of displaced veterans of irregular warfare such as the post-Civil War American West, Tito's post WWII problems with his Partisans, and the juvenilocracy of Cambodia.
War is an ultimate and lasting inhumanity that permanently damages the participants. If people are ceremonially inducted into a uniformed service and with equal ceremony mustered out, the horror is somewhat contained. Guerrillas do not have the benefits of such opening and closing ceremonies and spend a great deal of their time outside the pale of authority doing stuff that's normally criminal. They are very hard to housebreak after that.
Sorely argued that when General Abrams replaced Westmoreland's "search and destroy" with his own "clear and hold," the US won the Vietnam War. He also claims that the South Vietnamese only then lost because the US denied them funding.
Sorely's analysis is quite different from my own and from such greater experts than I such as David Elliott ("The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta, 1930-1975") or William Turley (The Second Indochina War, 1954-1975") or North Vietnam's General Le Ngoc Hien or R.S. MacNamara.
TheTet Offensive, central to Sorely's thesis, was a military expense to North Vietnam and the Viet Cong. It looked like a military mistake in that the disaffected peasants of the south did not just rise up in rebellion. Sorely seems to argue two things at once here. Firstly, he sees Tet as a US victory, so sacking the ever-optimistic Westmoreland for Abrams seems dubious, but also he does much tout Abrams "clear and hold."
Many conventional historians see Tet as a problem for the North, to say the least, and view Abrams' more rational use of air and artillery as improvements that "came too late. Let's really look at Tet and the subsequent "clear and hold."
Tet did not do what Gen. Le Ngoc Hien planned but he still regards it as his victory because he shares the belief that Tet eliminated the US will to fight. Tet sure brought a lot about the war home, but given that we kept on for about a year and a half longer than our entire involvement in WWII and at considerable lower casualties, I don't really believe it was simply about "will to fight."
Tet did show that there was actually no price that North Vietnam would not pay. It got rid of one loosing US strategy and replaced it with another, for "clear and hold" did more clearing than holding. And that clearing was a hugely genocide exercise that completely disrupted the society and economy of Vietnam - as if it'd not been demolished enough - leaving no social basis for the South to ever win. Far from winning the war, clear and hold guaranteed the South's defeat
One additional salutary side effect of Tet that no North Vietnamese leaders have acknowledged: Tet killed a lot of Viet Cong. Regardless of initial high motivation, great moral and all that good stuff, demobilized guerrillas are an incredible problem in peacetime. The slaughter of the Viet Cong and their replacement by regular army troops inevitably eased the North's problems of governance after 1975.*
"Clear and hold" did not work both because the tide of history was against the side we backed and because it was only clear, not hold. "Clear, Hold and Build" is not much better for several reasons. Firstly, we're not much more likely to really do all three than Abrams was able to do but two.
More importantly, "clear, hold and build" gets the reality of civil strife just about backwards. Guerrillas are defeated when the society in general is moving to prosperity and justice. They are defeated when the most dynamic part of a society, the "have some and want more" people believe in the social process. That's what marginalizes and criminalizes the "insurgent" or revolutionary elements.
If the elected government can actually enable fair opportunities for most Iraqi's, it stands a chance. If it just hangs out while our troops blast holes in cities, establish perimeters for car bombers to aim at, and maybe string a few miles of electric line, the Iraqis and the US will fail.
# # #
*This savage insight initiated for me with my work with Vietnam War vets and Khmer orphans. It's been rounded out by historical studies of war's aftermath, especially where there were large numbers of displaced veterans of irregular warfare such as the post-Civil War American West, Tito's post WWII problems with his Partisans, and the juvenilocracy of Cambodia.
War is an ultimate and lasting inhumanity that permanently damages the participants. If people are ceremonially inducted into a uniformed service and with equal ceremony mustered out, the horror is somewhat contained. Guerrillas do not have the benefits of such opening and closing ceremonies and spend a great deal of their time outside the pale of authority doing stuff that's normally criminal. They are very hard to housebreak after that.