This question comes up due to the differences in opinion I have seen comparing the Iraq conflict to the Vietnam conflict.

The lessons I learned from Vietnam:

1. The United States may be the most powerful nation but we can not dictate affairs in other countries by means of force.

2. Given time, many bad situations around the world will find their own solutions.

3. Do not spend the lives of American soldiers unless there is a clear goal and timeline.

4. United States administrations will lie for political reasons to start a conflict or to stay in one.


Vietnam lessons some seem to have:

A. It is best to pull out of conflict once hundreds of thousand of soldiers have died.

b. It is best to pull out of a conflict if little to no progress has been made in a decade but only if A. is also true.

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Here are my comments on the above lessons.

1. We have to know our limitations. Just because we have good motives and a good system in our country does not mean we can transfer that quickly to another country. Force does not work at all.

2. Vietnam is better off today than before and after the war. Improvement happened after the United States left.

3. Opened ended engagements are conflicts without a possible resolution. Fuzzy speak which sounds good is not a replacement for clear concise objectives.

4. When will we learn? Is believing in the power and glory and goodness of the United States more important than facing up to reality? The United States can be powerful, full of glory, and good but we are not always and we need to acknowledge and make corrections to be truly powerful, glorious and good.

A. How many times have different people said the Vietnam conflict can not be compared to Iraq because the death totals are so different? If we did not learn the lessons of Vietnam we will repeat them. You have to apply the lessons before you repeat ones actions not after the bad stuff has happened again. Do you really think hundreds of thousands of soldier have to die before you can compare the similarities between the two?

B. It should not take a decade to realize policy is not sensible when the use of the military is a primary tool being used. It should not be OK to squander measly hundreds of American lives to support poor policy.

The most important lesson in my mind is that you cannot go half-heartedly into a protracted military campaign. You must commit to victory at the outset and define exactly what that includes because our goals in that conflict were very vauge. Keep the civilians out of it whenever possible the last thing you need is more enemies from the civilian population. The most important lesson is, dont take too long because the constant drain cannot be maintained indefinatly.

The lessons from the Vietnam war were compiled into six basic tenants by Caspar Weinberger and Colin Powell in the 1980's. What later became known as the Powell Doctrine, outlines the questions that a president and/or congress should ask before committing troops overseas. I teach this as part of my American Military History class, and on monday, when I get back to work, I'll post the doctrine, unless someone else beats me to it. It can also be found towards the end of an excellent book by Max Boot, "The Savage Wars of Peace".

One lesson we might have learned is making friends with the civilians and not killing them on purpose. Making friends with the locals can give us an advantage because we can use the friendship to have them act as informants.

Also, keep the politicians out of the strategy making. Leave it to the Generals who know what they are doing.

If i recall from history class... The Jets we flew during the war were a part of the "Air Force", and they were practically a disaster. Considering the ratio of successful missions:shot down/failed missions. Because of the bad air campaign, after the war the NAVY began to have their own jets, and for a while after the war the air force was always struggling to keep up with the navy.

Zac, your history teacher did you wrong. The Navy and the Air Force have both always had their fleet of aircraft. The Navy Aviation had the mission to protect the fleet and the Marines. The Air Force had the role of strategic bombing, air superiority/supremacy, and to support the Army.
During the war in Vietnam, both air assets were used, and both had comparable successes. Both also had the latest in western technology, considered marginally better than the best the Soviets and Chinese had. (who supplied the N. Vietnamese)

I think we learned that each conflict is unique and has its own tactics and methods that need to be learned. The leaders during Vietnam, Pres. Johnson, SecDef McNamara, Gen. Wheeler, Gen. Westmoreland were from the World War generation. They thought in terms of set piece battles, huge conflicts, tanks and artillery, mass troop clashed. But Vietnam was a jungle, insurgent type conflict. It required new and innovative small unit tactics, at the company level, and even smaller. The pacification program that the Marines used should have been used much more, the attempts to win the locals, to build their villages and provide medical care would have won us more battles than any guns. We also were backing a corrupt, decadent regime in South Vietnam. Those SouViet leaders were incomepetent, we should have recognized that they did not have any support among the people. Perhaps instead of sending in military advisors in the early 60's we should have been sending "capitalist" advisors, agarian experts, business leaders to help improve the South Vietnamese' daily lives

Gray Seal Wrote:

>1. We have to know our limitations. Just because we have good motives and a good system >in our country does not mean we can transfer that quickly to another country. Force does >not work at all.

I agree. However, I believe we have a moral imperative to share the experience of our culture and civilization to those desiring our way of life. The presence of Vietnamese refugees who eventually became US citizens stands as testimony that people in Vietnam preferred our lifestyle to the Marxist one that Ho Chi Minh offered. Force does not always work and it does not work as a strategy by itself.

>2. Vietnam is better off today than before and after the war. Improvement happened after >the United States left.

I totally disagree. In Vietnam, you still have bureaucrats who produce nothing and expect everything. It is very difficult to do business there today and a political freedom for its citizenry is a scandal.

>3. Opened ended engagements are conflicts without a possible resolution. Fuzzy speak which >sounds good is not a replacement for clear concise objectives.

LBJ’s backers were defense contractors from Texas who made a lot money off of this unending war. This does not directly address your issue, with which I agree, but it goes a lot to explain why things happened the way they did.

>4. When will we learn? Is believing in the power and glory and goodness of the United States >more important than facing up to reality? The United States can be powerful, full of glory, >and good but we are not always and we need to acknowledge and make corrections to be >truly powerful, glorious and good.

This is not Marcus Aurelius’ Rome. I agree with you if we are not just at home we cannot be aboard, but that does not mean we turn our back on the evil around us. Further if we can do a good thing and benefit from it, what is wrong with that?

>A. How many times have different people said the Vietnam conflict can not be compared to
>Iraq because the death totals are so different? If we did not learn the lessons of Vietnam we
>will repeat them. You have to apply the lessons before you repeat ones actions not after the
>bad stuff has happened again. Do you really think hundreds of thousands of soldier have to
>die before you can compare the similarities between the two?

I disagree. The real problem with Vietnam was listening to LBJ and the Pacifists. A sound strategy i.e. neutralizing the Viet Cong supply lines, confronting the North, China and the Soviet Union diplomatically and should it come to it militarily, setting up proxy forces vis-à-vis Special Forces (still in its infancy) and a counter-insurgent strategy set up along the lines on 1954 Philippine Huk suppression campaign would have worked. We also betrayed the French during the Ike years and assassinating the Diem brothers during JFK did not win us any moral force arguments.

Go America wrote:

“One lesson we might have learned is making friends with the civilians and not killing them on purpose. Making friends with the locals can give us an advantage because we can use the friendship to have them act as informants.

Also, keep the politicians out of the strategy making. Leave it to the Generals who know what they are doing.”

I agree with you on your second point. On your first point, I do not believe that we should constrain ourselves to winning the hearts and the minds of the locals. Sometimes the enemy needs to be destroyed where he lives and he must be made to feel conquered. Historical examples include Sherman’s March to the Sea, Reconstruction, Nagasaki and Hiroshima, MacArthur humiliating the Emperor of Japan, Tamerlane in Bagdad, Julius Ceasar in Gaul and the Romans in Carthage. These situations are rare but all options should be on the table when we are talking about war or more importantly whenever we are talking about America’s prestige.

Heather Rob wrote: “The pacification program that the Marines used should have been used much more, the attempts to win the locals, to build their villages and provide medical care would have won us more battles than any guns. We also were backing a corrupt, decadent regime in South Vietnam. Those SouViet leaders were incompetent; we should have recognized that they did not have any support among the people. Perhaps instead of sending in military advisors in the early 60's we should have been sending "capitalist" advisors, agrarian experts, business leaders to help improve the South Vietnamese' daily lives “

I don’t know much about the Marine pacification program. But I disagree with you that the South Vietnamese leadership was corrupt. Fact is we are talking about Asia here, where a different moral code applies. Kim of South Korea, Chiang Kai Shek of Taiwan, Suharto of Indonesia they all answered the charge of corruption yet their regimes are further along the road to democracy than their counterparts are. Interesting aside about the capitalist advisors but it sounds a little Clintonesque to be a successful long term solution.

Don't try to fight conventionally in a jungle country. Don't invade a country without the UN. Learn from mistakes (this never happens). Look after soldiers (more vietnam soldiers died after the war by killing themselves than died during the war itself).

Plan plan plan.