Lessons from Vietnam may apply to Iraq

By JOHN LARKIN

Special to The News 8/18/2002

Those who would make war with Iraq should pause to recall what happened in Vietnam some 40 years ago. Many circumstances of the entry into that tragic conflict were different from those surrounding America's current confrontation with Iraq. But two assumptions are similar. The case for entering the conflict then, as now, seemed justified on the grounds that it was vital to America's national interest. The other belief then that has currency today was that the enemy was easily beatable. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, stopping the spread of communism in the Third World was considered crucial. America sanctioned war with a small Asian nation on the basis of the "Domino Theory" that came into fashion during the Eisenhower presidency and was adopted by the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations.

The idea was that, should South Vietnam fall to the communists, much of the rest of Asia would tumble as well, leaving America very vulnerable to economic strangulation and perhaps invasion. That theory derived from an inadequate understanding of nationalism in Asia. It turned out that only two other countries, Laos and Cambodia, "fell" to communism after the United States withdrew from Vietnam in 1975.

Moreover, both had had an earlier history of being under Vietnamese influence. America's defeat of world communism finally came about in 1989 as a result of other, more complex political, economic and diplomatic strategies carried out elsewhere. Americans need to ask and receive answers about the degree of challenge Iraq poses to our vital interests. Does the threat of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction justify a long-term commitment to a ground war and the vast expenditure of human and economic resources? Is major involvement required to eliminate the ideological and subversive threat posed by Iraq? In the final reckoning, the Vietnam engagement cost more that 58,000 lives on America's side alone.

Indochinese civilian deaths reached into the millions, especially when the war spread into Cambodia. What cost is America prepared to pay today? Are there not more thoughtful, less costly methods that could be employed to contain the menace from Iraq? America's allies think there must be another way, as they did during the Vietnam War era. The U.S. government, then and now, received cautionary advice about a major commitment. In the end, the great majority of Asian and European allies gave lukewarm or no support for America's Vietnam endeavor. Can our current allies, both European and Islamic, be persuaded to join in an all-out conflict in Iraq? Besides being wrong about the threat of the spread of world communism during the Vietnam era, the United States also underestimated the enemy's strength and will to resist. Starting during the Kennedy years, military and civilian advisers assured the president that the application of America's technical superiority and massive air power would pressure the Vietnamese into giving up the cause of unification.

The U.S. leaders, at least up to the Tet Offensive of 1968, were certain that they could see "the light at the end of the tunnel," and that victory was near. That assumption failed in the face of Vietnamese popular will. To begin with, the Vietminh regime under Ho Chi Minh was more popular and ready to oppose foreign intrusion than American leaders and their so-called expert advisers were ready to acknowledge. As it turned out, Ho had long ago captured the nationalistic imagination of the majority of Vietnamese in the northern part of the country and perhaps the south as well. South Vietnamese presidents, from Ngo Dinh Diem to Nguyen Van Thieu, failed to capture the allegiance of the majority of the people, despite American support.

The Vietnamese in large numbers remained prepared to pay the price of continuing the war. Even those who did not want a communist regime wanted a foreign invasion even less. America entered the Vietnam War with imperfect knowledge of the Vietnamese history and culture. In their books "The Perfect War" and "Sacred War," James W. Gibson and William Duiker, respectively, make the point that popular will is a potent weapon against technological superiority. During the Vietnam War, the bombing campaign, known as Rolling Thunder, was mainly unopposed. Finally, however, the war was lost in the villages and highlands of Vietnam, where America's allies gave up whatever advantage they had in "winning the hearts and minds" of the local people.

In modern Iraq, America has revealed during Desert Storm and up to the present that it possesses technical domination in the air. But what will happen when American troops, even with their up-to-date weapons, have to fight in the villages and cities? Do we know enough to be sure that the people of Iraq will not resist? Could they not form a resistance and fight a defensive war? Can we know that their Islamic beliefs will not lead them to a patriotic defense of their homeland? The price of war could become very high.

In Vietnam the conflagration was prolonged and ultimately unsuccessful because no leaders with valid credentials ever emerged to serve as an alternative to Ho Chi Minh's Vietminh regime and its Vietcong allies. In the Iraq case, we have yet to identify a viable alternative to Saddam Hussein. As in Vietnam, this situation could mean that any American army could be trapped in a prolonged and frustrating guerrilla-style war. Moreover, might not Iraq's Islamic neighbors decide to aid a co-religionist threatened by a non-Muslim nation?

The United States felt its strategy for victory in Vietnam was limited by a fear of possible Chinese or Russian involvement in the conflict. Could not the United States find itself fighting with one hand tied behind its back in Iraq, worrying about whether or not the broader Islamic world might not come to the aid of a fellow Muslim state?

The main problem in Vietnam was that we entered the field with inadequate understanding of the situation in that country and of the possibilities of victory. Do our leaders today have enough knowledge of the situation in Iraq and the Muslim world to guarantee success of a major military effort? Do we know for certain that Saddam Hussein is not as popular as Ho Chi Minh turned out to be? Americans, even though justifiably angered by the events of Sept. 11, should not find themselves drawn into a larger war on the basis of faulty assumptions about causes and capabilities. History does not always repeat itself, and the same results may not follow an invasion of Iraq that followed the involvement in Vietnam. However, the earlier struggle provides some cautionary lessons on how to proceed at present. Any decision for war must be made on the basis of considerable knowledge about military, political and social conditions in the Arabic-speaking world.

To avoid a repetition of the Vietnam debacle, the Bush administration should share its knowledge and thinking about Iraq with the American public and its allies in advance in order to develop a solid, informed consensus on the advisability of fighting a ground war in an Islamic nation.

JOHN LARKIN, an expert on Southeast Asia and the Philippines, is a history professor at the University at Buffalo.