Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945-1975 (Modern War Studies) (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"If you only had to have one book on the Vietnam War, this is the one." --The Veteran

"This is the book we've been waiting for . . . the new standard . . . . It really is as simple as that." --Vietnam

"If you only had to have one book on the Vietnam War, this is the one." --The Veteran

"This important and provocative work should be read by anyone studying the war, whether in academia or from personal interest." --Library Journal

Product Description

The Vietnam war continues to be the focus of intense controversy. While most people--liberals, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, historians, pundits, and citizens alike--agree that the United States did not win the war, a vocal minority argue the opposite or debate why victory never came, attributing the quagmire to everything from domestic politics to the press. The military never lost a battle; how then did it not win the war?

Stepping back from this overheated fray, bestselling author John Prados takes a fresh look at both the war and the debates about it to produce a much-needed and long-overdue reassessment of one of our nation's most tragic episodes. Drawing upon several decades of research--including recently declassified documents, newly available presidential tapes, and a wide range of Vietnamese and other international sources--Prados's magisterial account weaves together multiple perspectives across an epic-sized canvas where domestic politics, ideologies, nations, and militaries all collide.

Prados patiently pieces back together the events and moments, from the end of World War II until our dispiriting departure from Vietnam in 1975, that reveal a war that now appears to have been truly unwinnable--due to opportunities lost, missed, ignored, or refused. He shows how--from the Truman through the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations--American leaders consistently ignored or misunderstood the realities in Southeast Asia and passed up every opportunity to avoid war in the first place or avoid becoming ever more mired in it after it began. Highlighting especially Ike's seminal and long-lasting influence on our Vietnam policy, Prados demonstrates how and why our range of choices narrowed with each passing year, while our decision-making continued to be distorted by Cold War politics and fundamental misperceptions about the culture, psychology, goals, and abilities of both our enemies and our allies in Vietnam.

By turns engaging narrative history, compelling analytic treatise, and moving personal account, Prados's magnum opus challenges previous authors and should rightfully take its place as the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and accurate one-volume account of a war that--judging by the frequent analogies to the current war in Iraq--has not yet really ended for any of us.

This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 665 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Kansas (April 21, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0700616349
• ISBN-13: 978-0700616343
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #163,885 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Contemporary History of the Vietnam War, May 12, 2009

By	C. Michael Hiam - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A up to date survey of the American experience in Vietnam to succeed the two aging standards of the genre, which are Stanley Karnow's work published in 1983 and Michael Maclear's book from 1981, is long overdue and John Prados, author of such originals as "The Hidden History of the Vietnam War" and "The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam War," is evidently the person who has done it. As an independent historian Prados brings his penchant for rigorous research, original content, and good writing to bear on a massive and complex topic and "Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945-1975" adroitly navigates difficult historical waters in a fast-paced and readable manner. My only expertise related to Vietnam is a very narrow one involving American intelligence issues prior to the 1968 Tet offensive but here I can validate that Prados has full command of the topic and covers it with detail not otherwise seen in books intended for a general audience. (I only wish that I had Prados as a source when researching my book.) Prados has a keen eye for both the military and political aspects of the conflict and his narrative moves smoothly between the two, as it does in handling the interplay between events and people in Vietnam and in the rest of the world-- principally, of course, in the United States. Prados has maximized use of the vast literature on Vietnam which has appeared over the past sixty years plus a tremendous amount of newly declassified information and material only now being made available by the Communist regime in Hanoi. The book's three photographic sections suffer from overly-long captions which squeeze the size of the pictures, and also from not being printed on glossy paper which render the otherwise interesting photographs dark and grainy. There is a brief introductory note, 550 pages of text, plus an extensive end-note section and comprehensive bibliographic essay. "Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945-1975" is highly recommended for those making their first pass through the history of the war as well as those who have been bitten by the topic and want to read more.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A remarkable book, July 17, 2009

By	Charles Poncet (Geneva Switzerland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Many years after it ended, the Vietnam war can still be divisive in the U.S. and probably elsewhere as well. A quick look at the reviews published by Amazon suggests that politics - or visions of the world - are still involved here. This is why John Prados' book is remarkabe and should be read by anyone with an interest in the Vietnam tragedy. It is a perfect complement to Karnow's book of some years ago and it adds plenty of new materials. Prados starts with an unusual "disclosure statement" in which he confesses to having been an opponent of the war in his youth, particularly as a student at Columbia. So what ? He shows distinct antipathy towards Kissinger, ofen referred to in the book as "Dr. Kissinger", whilst general Abrams is "Abe" and neither does he come across as a member of Richard Nixon's fan club. So what ? This does not in any way affect the interest of the book, which is extremely well written and captivating from beginning to end. The story unfolds, with emphasis on the American policies followed at the time, as could be expected when telling the story of an American war. However, the byzantine politics of Saigon are well explained and there are very interesting insights into the thought process of the steely leaders in Hanoi.
The book also has a guided bibliography, which is pleasurable to read and where any Vietnam war buff will find what he needs.
I would have only one criticism: the editor, probably to save money, put the footnotes at the end ! This is a pity for their contents are of great interest, yet reading them requires a somewhat tedious page turning exercise. Perhaps the next edition will have the footnotes in the text itself, as they should be.
In short, Mr. Prados is a remarkable scholar, he knows his subject in depth and he does a splendid job in telling that story. Whatever his politics may be is quite irrelevant in my opinion.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Synoptic View of a Syndrome as Much as a War, December 4, 2009

By	Robert T. OKEEFFE (Orangeburg, Rockland County, New York) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As the book's first Amazon reviewer stated, Prados's history of the war in Vietnam supplements earlier well-known works (e.g., S. Karnow's). But it does more than this. While it introduces much new information (a great deal of that coming from Hanoi, but also from recently declassified materials from the LBJ and Nixon eras), it is also a "synthetic" history in a way earlier works were not. Prados goes to pains to point this out in his Introduction. What is he synthesizing? The brief answer is "topical threads" of history which have tended to be treated separately. So we get: (1) The military and political history of the war itself, in all three of its phases (French, U.S., and the final three years of the "Vietnamized" war). (2) A good picture of the capacities of the National Liberation Front (NLF) in South Vietnam and of the government and war-policy of the DRV (Democratic Republic of Vietnam, aka North Vietnam). (3) The broad Cold-War political and diplomatic scenario into which this local conflict fit (or was squeezed by ideologues on both sides). (4) The emergence of the war protest movement in the U.S. as part of a larger trend of participatory democracy that started with the civil rights movement. And we get a record of the author's personal experience as an advocate-turned-opponent of the war during the years 1965-1972 (presented as italicized inserts in half a dozen parts of the history).

The summary discussion of the war during Truman's and Eisenhower's presidencies is especially interesting as establishing a restricting series of "choice points" that tended to define and limit American options in the long run (a process Prados calls "narrowing the envelope"). Especially long-lasting in this respect were the reactions of American politicians (LBJ and Nixon, importantly) to the events that culminated in the defeat of the French troops at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 (i.e., "never again" or "not on my watch" attitudes, which closed off a Geneva-style solution). According to Prados, JFK's ultimate role in the deepening of U.S. commitment to the Diem regime remains unresolved, due to his assassination in 1963. However, JFK's widening of the war in Laos is taken by Prados to indicate that he probably would have gone in the direction of more troops and assistance to South Vietnam, although no one knows if he would have reacted to the Gulf of Tonkin incident in the same manner as LBJ (Kennedy had been burned by expert opinion before during the Bay of Pigs fiasco and appeared to acquire a healthy skepticism about the opinions of military and CIA men on the viability and desirability of specific military responses to political crises). We shall never know.

But we do know now that even American naval intelligence is still mystified by the Gulf of Tonkin events (they can't confirm that an attack took place), and that LBJ was shopping for incidents like the Tonkin one that would allow him to go to Congress with strong demands about building up the military capacity of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN or South Vietnam) under Diem's political leadership. And therein - from Diem, through numerous coup leaderships, including the often installed and often dethroned General Khanh to Air Marshall Ky and finally Thieu - lay the problem of American ineffectiveness as Prados sees it: the absolute lack of leverage exercised by the U.S. over any of these men. Neither diplomacy nor massive economic and military assistance was able to be used to force our "clients" toward any systematic program of reform, anti-corruption, or serious democratic nation-building, which was the alleged point of U.S. involvement to begin with (that is, as the only effective means of preventing a North Vietnamese victory by creating a healthy alternative state). Then there is the other looming background problem: the fact that the RVN leaders were viewed as Western clients by many of their own countrymen, while the DRV's leaders were seen as national heroes who had ejected the French. The credibility of our enemies rested as much on this reputation as it did on their commitments to socialism/communism - Ho Chi Minh may be the Vietnamese Lenin, but he's also the Vietnamese George Washington, an unnatural hybrid to us but a natural one to many Vietnamese.

Along the way to disaster Prados defines and examines the "Vietnam data problem" that plagued American analysis of the war from the top (MacNamara) down: the total lack of accuracy concerning the NLF's and DRV's military capacities and their ability to politically control a large portion of South Vietnam even when they took a pasting in battles and campaigns (e.g., Tet 1968). This implied South Vietnam's inability to establish such control even after military victories secured by American troops. The lack of accurate data led to artificially optimistic American estimates of an approaching "light at the end of the tunnel" that always seemed to recede as soon as it was announced. Each new program (cultivating "third forces" such as the Hoa Hao Buddhists or the Cao Dai sect, fortified hamlets, rural pacification entailing huge population moves, Vietnamization of the military effort during 1968-72) generated questionable statistics that were trumpeted as pointing the way to victory. The disconnect between these statistics and the realities in the Presidential Palace of Saigon and in the disparate battlefields was almost total.

A very disheartening aspect of this book is its revelations about the extent to which American presidents, reacting to a burgeoning anti-war movement, went to war with their own people, lightly labeling all dissent as "subversion" and dictatorially authorizing surveillance, wiretaps, and (indirectly) crimes such as false prosecutions and burglary, all directed against protestors, civic organizations, and even their own presidential staff members, from the Cabinet level on down. These illegal operations directed against American citizens co-opted the services and tarnished the reputations of the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, military intelligence, and local police forces with their theatrically-named "red squads". It's a sorry story, with the first presidential "enemies list" being put forward by LBJ and taken to a new level of vindictiveness by Nixon. LBJ's historical reputation rests upon his activism in the realm of civil rights, but this must be ultimately undercut by his cavalier disregard for civil liberties occasioned by his blinkered view of what victory and defeat in Vietnam might mean. It's a very sorry chapter of American political life - actually inexcusable -- that is described by Pardos in these pages.

Prados's post-war contacts with the current Vietnamese leadership, including its military men (many of whom were active during the decade of U.S. involvement in the war) provides details "from the other side" which put many events in a new light. For instance, the DRV leaders worked on the American leaders' fears that Khe Sanh might be another Dien Bien Phu, but the military action that encircled this base camp was actually a serious feint meant to mislead U.S. military intelligence while preparations were being made for the 1968 Tet offensive. Although the expected urban uprisings never occurred, and although the NLF (the "guerilla force", as opposed to North Vietnamese "main forces") was gutted by the Tet offensive, the DRV was still happy with the outcome. Though they had lost their battles to U.S. forces, they had also demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the ARVN in a crises situation. Their follow-on offensives in 1968 were also disappointing, but the South Vietnamese political leaders were still unable to capitalize on DRV and NFL military setbacks - political control of the countryside remained split between the enemy camps, and Saigon still refused to undertake any serious political reforms.

Prados gives a thorough account of the DRV's later, larger Nguyen Hue offensive (also called the Easter offensive) in 1972. This took place after U.S. forces had been in the main withdrawn or confined to air support and base defense duties. Here the DRV's main force army put to good use the lessons it learned during Tet, upping the ante with tank and heavy artillery and anti-aircraft missile support, capturing several provincial capitals, and almost severing South Vietnam from its northern coastal region. He also does an excellent job of analyzing Nixon's motives and aims in undertaking the Cambodian borderland invasion, and he provides an equally good analysis of its failed counterpart that was designed as both a way of shutting down the Ho Chi Minh supply trail and a test case of the efficacy of "Vietnamization" -- this was the burden of ARVN's main force incursion into Laos in 1971 (the extent of the war in Laos throughout this whole period, hitherto ignored by most writers on the Vietnamese war, is fully covered by Prados). The Laotian operation avoided total ignominy only as a result of U.S. troops grinding a way through to the border to get ARVN into Laos. Then, after ARVN took a serious beating its remnants were only saved by intense U.S. air cover and helicopter evacuations. ARVN failed this test, and the Ho Chi Minh trail continued to be expanded and even modernized, allowing it to play a major role in the DRV's successful offensive of 1975 that ended in the collapse of the South Vietnamese government and the hasty exit of remaining U.S. personnel and thousands of South Vietnamese retainers and clients.

On parallel tracks Prados covers the anti-war movement and Nixon's countermeasures during his first term in office, as well as the official and unofficial (Kissinger) negotiations in Paris as they stuttered along. From the outset in 1968 Nixon had encouraged Kissinger to create the impression that his boss was... Read more ›