Customer Reviews

Vietnam the Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous Military Conflict

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

What makes this book stand out from most others on this subject is its viewpoint. Michael Lind writes from the standpoint of liberal anti-Communism or "Cold War liberalism." This proud but now neglected tradition was best embodied by Presidents Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Senators Hubert H. Humphrey and Henry "Scoop" Jackson. It combined an assertive foreign policy with colorblind civil rights policy and populist economic policy. Tragically, this center-left faction no longer exists as an organized entity in either party, but that's another story.

Lind ruefully notes that a half-baked consensus about Vietnam has found vogue. The U.S. need not have intervened in the first place, but "unlimited" force should have been used against the Viet Cong and North Vietnam once the U.S. did intervene. Liberal isolationists are presumed to have been correct about geopolitical considerations while conservative hawks are presumed to have been correct about military tactics. As Lind demonstrates, both halves of this consensus are misleading:

1) LBJ did not invent America's interest in preserving a non-Communist South Vietnam; it was a commitment dating back to Truman and Eisenhower. Furthermore, it's naive to assume that the U.S. would have suffered little or no damage to its international credibility or security if it allowed South Vietnam to go down the drain without a fight in 1965, especially so close on the heels of the Bay of Pigs and the construction of the Berlin Wall. In fact, the eventual victory of Moscow's North Vietnamese clients did lead to a more aggressive Soviet foreign policy, culminating in the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

2) LBJ, according to Lind's account, made just one significant stumble, but it was a big one. He should never have given the green light to General Westmoreland's war of attrition. Conventional tactics were an inefficient way to battle the VC, which was waging a mostly guerrilla insurgency in the make-or-break years between 1965 and 1968. The problem was not that Westmoreland was losing the war; the problem was that too many American casualties piled up too quickly. Even after the Tet Offensive, which was a defeat for the VC from a purely military standpoint, the war remained "winnable." But it was being "won" at an obscenely high price, more than the American people could bear.

An alternative was the doctrine of "counter-insurgency" a.k.a. "pacification" or "population security." As Lind explains: "[A] pacification strategy ... would have permitted a more discriminating and less expensive approach to the use of firepower while reducing American losses ... The insurgency would have withered if the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces cut off the recruits and supplies flowing to the Viet Cong from South Vietnam's densely populated coastal rim ..."

Lind does not claim that pacification by itself would have won the war. "[T]he point of pacification would have been to force Hanoi to choose between waging a conventional Korean-type war (in which the U.S. had a comparative advantage) or abandoning its attempt to conquer South Vietnam."

This book has its imperfections. For example, Lind talks from both sides of his mouth regarding America's disengagement from Indochina in 1973-75. "If any Americans deserve a share of the blame for the Khmer Rouge massacres and famine," Lind writes on page 174, "it is anti-war members of Congress ... [who denied] military aid and air support for America's Cambodian allies." Whoa! Lind spends much of the previous 173 pages explaining why the U.S. needed to get out of Indochina after 1968 (to preserve the domestic consensus in favor of the Cold War on other fronts). Now he chastises Congress for doing exactly that!?! The cutoff of aid to Lon Nol's Cambodian government came more than two years after Nixon and Kissinger signed a treaty that Lind himself calls "a thinly disguised capitulation to Hanoi." Quick fixes were futile by 1975. Recognizing this, Lind writes on page 136: "Even without the congressional cutoff of U.S. military [aid], it seems unlikely that any endgame that did not lead to an indefinite Korean-style commitment of U.S. forces to Indochina probably would have doomed South Vietnam, along with Laos and Cambodia." Thanks for clearing that up, Mike.

But overall, Michael Lind refreshingly challenges the cliches at both ends of the spectrum that have distorted discussions of the Vietnam War for too long.

Lind has written a book that takes a look back at the Vietnam conflict as it related to the Cold War and superpower competition in the post-World War II world. There is none of the historical revisionism or disinformation that pervade so many of the books that attempt to label Vietnam as a war that was a civil conflict that should not have been fought by the United States. His reasoning is sound and compelling and cites historical facts. For this veteran, this book has reaffirmed the belief that Vietnam was fought for all the right reasons and contributed to the overall victory of the West that concluded the Cold War a decade ago. The men lost in Vietnam did not die in vain and Lind's book proves that point. Semper Fi.

Book Review: Vietnam the Necessary War, by Michael Lind
C-Span has run and rerun tapes of a live debate (with callers) between Michael Lind, author of Vietnam, the Necessary War and Tim O'Brien author of July, July. Lind, who is defending the purposes behind the war is no conservative war-hawk. He wrote a book about how he has rejected conservatism and adopted a center-left perspective in line with Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. He is a convinced advocate of Truman's policy of containment. He rejects a McArthur style "there is no substitute for victory" and a worldwide fight against Communism. He embraces limited wars as in Korea, Vietnam, and the Afgan vs Soviet war - because in these three cases, the great communist powers of Russia and/or China were actively involved in the war for expansionist objectives. He rejects involvement in Communists insurgencies where Russia and China were not seriously involved or have no strategic interest..
Lind has studied the treasury of documents released by Russia in the nineties which decisively proves that Russia and China were deeply involved in Vietnam from beginning to end. Ho Chi Minh, the North Vietnamese leader, was a member of the Comintern and was co-conspirator with Russia and China from beginning to end. Lind rebukes the war-hawk conservatives who wanted to invade the north. He has found records which reveal Mao Tse Tung's plans to send troops into Vietnam if America invaded the north - just as he sent troops during the Korean War. Lind rebukes the anti-war liberals for undercutting America's purposes in the Vietnam war and contributing to the defeat. He also blames American generals for fighting the war incorrectly and stupidly..
George Kennan crafted the policy of containment during the Truman administration. America and NATO were pledged to contain the expansionist designs of Russia and China by fighting limited proxy wars such as Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. The objective was to hold back the tide and buy time until Communism collapsed from its own dead weight - as it did in Russia in 1990 and which it is now on the verge of doing in North Korea.
After the American defeat in Vietnam, America lost prestige and world Communism gained prestige. Communist insurgencies increased around the world - until Russia got bogged down in the proxy war in Afghanistan. President Reagan sent covert aid to the Afghan rebels. Then Russia lost the war, lost prestige and the red tide waned throughout the world.
The C-Span debate was a classic of facts versus feelings, and moral clarity versus moral confusion. Tim O'Brien, a Vietnam veteran's comments were deeply colored by his emotional horror of war which he ventilated at great length. He was morally confused in his attribution of evil motives to America and benign motives to the Communist dictators. When he debated with Mr. Lind on the facts, O'Brien seemed to reinterpret the facts in a "blame America" leftist fashion. Lind generally stuck to a big-picture perspective supported by hard research. He rebuked Americans of the left and right for losing sight of the big picture. He kept a steady focus on the persistence and conspiratorial nature of Communist expansionism, the horror of living under a Communist dictatorship, and the nature of the strategic global struggle of the cold war.
Vietnam, the Necessary War is a must read for Vietnam veterans who have not yet healed from the experience. Although we were defeated we bought eight years of time in delaying the spread of Communism. Vets, your labor and suffering were not in vain. I also recommend the book to history buffs, strategic big-picture guys, and those who are sick to death of left wing propaganda about Vietnam. If you are a diehard hawk or dove - you won't like it. As for Tim O'Brien's book July, July I recommend it for a bird cage liner or kindling to light your fireplace.
Book Review by Fred Hutchison

In 284 pages, Mr. Lind shows us why we had to fight the Vietnam War. He also explains a strategy that probably would have brought victory for the United States.

He also debunks much of the liberal mythology surrounding the war. There were no "missed opportunities" to befriend the murderous North Vietnamese Communists. There was no opportunity for a Coalition Government in South Vietnam. South Vietnam's government was at least as legitimate as the North's and certainly preferable. The U.S. and South Vietnam did not violate the 1954 Geneva Conference requiring Vietnam wide elections because neither nation ratified this agreement.

Lind also debunks some of the right wing orthodoxy too. An invasion of North Vietnam would have been counterproductive if not disasterous. Also, lavish use of bombing was probably counter productive.

The only criticism I have is that this book is relatively short compared to its theme. Despite this, Mr. Lind makes compelling arguments and backs them up with quality research. I HIGHLY recommend this book to all who seek truth!

Of all the books I have read on the Vietnam war, this one probably is the most sane, sober analysis I have read. Lind himself has swayed in more than one direction is his career. But this comes across as if it was a written by an old school Cold Warrior Democrat (out of the JFK/LBJ mold). The book's main thesis is the United States credibility was at stake in the Vietnam War. The idea of the USA abandoning Indochina without a fight would have undermined our credibility in our security guarantees to other nations (including ones in Western Europe and the Middle East). Such perceived weakness would have lead to appeasement and our allies not following our leadership in the final stages of the Cold War.

Over the years (both during and after the war), I have heard a variety of myths (from both the left and the right) about the war. And this is one of the few books I have read that subjected these views to [needed] criticism. Among them are:

--The notion that Ho Chi Minh's communist beliefs were a superficial veneer and that he sought a united Vietnam neutral in the Cold War. From day one Vietnam was heavily dependent on the Soviet Union and China for it's very survival. In fact, the dissolution of the Soviet Union (in 1991) forced economic reforms in Vietnam to stave off economic collapse. Almost every aspect of North Vietnam (and later all of Vietnam) was a copy of similar institutions (and policies) of the USSR and China. The "land reform" actions taken by North Vietnam in the 1950's (in which thousands of North Vietnamese citizens were murdered) was a copy of Stalin's collectivization of Soviet agriculture in the 1930's. The North's "reeducation" camps (in which thousands more perished) were copies of Stalin's gulags and communist China's laogai. (Remember: Ho spent a great deal of time in the Soviet Union.) Even well into the 1980's the Vietnamese communists continued to copy the Soviet Union: their new constitution in this era was largely based on the Soviet Union's.

--The idea that Ho was the only legitimate leader in Vietnam. In a way, the communists made it that way since Ho outlawed, exiled, and executed most of his political opposition in the North. To this day the communists have not permitted a single multi-party election where they hold power (this is true of all of Vietnam now).

--The beielif [popular with the anti-war movement at the time] that South Vietnam violated international law by refusing to participate in national elections in 1956. Contrary to the mythology of the anti-Vietnam War movement, none of the major parties in the Vietnam War (i.e. North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, or the United States) endorsed the Geneva agreements. South Vietnam became formally independent from France on July 21, 1954. By the time of the Geneva conference, South Vietnam had been recognized by more than 30 countries and the United Nations [only a veto by the Soviet Union (on the security council) stopped them from becoming members]. Thus, South Vietnam, took part in the Geneva negotiations as a Sovereign state, not as a French colony. (By the way, if the defacto dependence of South Vietnam on France and the United States is thought to detract from its de jure sovereignty, then by the same standard North Vietnam must be treated as a defacto colony of China and the Soviet Union.) The South Vietnamese government used its sovereign authority to denounce French negotiations at Geneva purporting to bind South Vietnam. The reason the South did not want elections over all of Vietnam is simple: the communist monopoly of power in the North. The state department noted that the communist state's monopolization of power made "impossible any free and meaningful expression of popular will."

-- This myth that we somehow missed a chance to befriend Ho. The fact that the United States cooperated with Ho during WW II has been taken as evidence that he desired a good relationship with us. Those who make this argument are ignoring the fact that Ho's patrons Stalin and Mao had been allies of the USA during WW II as well. Both Mao and Ho pretended to be pro-American as long as they thought they could win US support, or at least ensure American neutrality with noncommunist nationals in their countries. And both were just as quick to denounce the United States when it served their purpose. As far as Ho quoting the Declaration of Independence goes: many Marxist-Leninist dictatorships had formal constitutions that were as liberal and democratic as the United States. Only one problem: these documents were treated as but a scrap of paper in these governments. Ho's quoting of the Declaration of Independence was insincere.

--The right has longed held the view that the military should have had no restrictions on (either) bombing or where land operations could be conducted (including the invasion of North Vietnam which was forbidden by leaders in Washington). Lind counters [using documents that have surfaced since the war] that China had secretly assured North Vietnam that they would help repel any invasion of the North [as they had done for North Korea] . (China [and to a much lesser degree: the Soviet Union] had troops in North Vietnam to assist with logistics and war related civil works projects. In many cases, their troops manned some weapons they supplied (like anti-aircraft guns.)) Thus a larger conflict would emerge (which is exactly what the United States wanted to avoid since China was nuclear armed by this time, something it was not during the Korean War).

-- The common misconception in the West that the Viet Cong's action(s) was a spontaneous revolt against misgovernment by the Diem regime. In actuality, the NLF formed at Hanoi's order and was controlled by them from the beginning to the end (it was true that the majority of VC were native South Vietnamese in the beginning; but from 1968 onward most were infiltrators from the North). Once it became apparent that the VC insurgency would not topple the South Vietnamese regime, it largely became the NVA's fight (through conventional invasion).

--The belief that JFK was going to withdraw. Using JFK's own quotes (right up until the point he was assassinated), Lind points out this was unlikely. Lind also points out that LBJ didn't want to get involved anymore than JFK did(which negates any reason for a conspiracy to get rid of Jack when LBJ didn't want a fight anymore than he did).

-- The myth of the disturbed Vietnam Vet. Vietnam veterans actually have a LOWER Post Traumatic Stress Disorder rate (12 per thousand) than their counter parts in WW II (29-101 per thousand) or Korea (37 per thousand). (He cites: 'Shook over Hell: Post-Traumatic Stress', by Eric Dean p.15, p.40) Vietnam Vets have also had lower unemployment rates than the general population (every year since 1974). The divorce rate and suicide rate for Vietnam vets is similar to the general population. And poll after poll has shown that Vets are proud to have served.

Lind says our involvement was worthwhile and takes the military to task for their strategy. He says that the Westmoreland strategy of "seek and destroy" piled up casualties to quickly and instead a counter insurgency strategy would have been far more effective. This would have kept causalities to a minimum and would have left leaders in Washington with enough political capital to repel the NVA invasion with conventional tactics (which is what the war largely consisted of after 1968). At the same time, he says the US should have placed an informal limit as to the amount of causalities it was willing to sustain (so that public support for the Cold War was not wrecked).

Considering the other books I have read on the war: this stacks up very well.

Mr. Lind tries to cover a lot of terrain in this analysis of the Vietnam War. However, after reading his description of Naval Academy graduate John McCain as a "former Air Force pilot and POW", I had to wonder how many other factual errors it contained. Still, worth reading for his revealing look at a lot of popular misconceptions about the war.

As a child, watching reports of the Vietnam War on TV, I was puzzled. I had seen movies and read books about World War II, in which American and Russsian forces pushed straight to Berlin to cut off the enemy's head. Why weren't we doing that now? Where was the push to Hanoi? The adults patted my little head. It's not that simple, Timmy. We don't want to take Hanoi. We just want to change their behavior. If we bomb them, but refrain from taking control of their country, they'll realize we mean well and they'll change their behavior.

Now comes Michael Lind to pat the heads of all who would question the Best and the Brightest's most famous and ghastly fiasco. The dust jacket touts his demolishing of "the stale orthodoxies of the left and the right". The first stale orthodoxy to be demolished is the idea that we should not have have gone in the first place. Hence the title: Necessary War. Lind's view is that it was a proxy battle in the Cold War. Nothing new in that, but it does come as news to me that the reason for Vietnam was to demonstrate our "credibility as a military superpower". Not only did this flimsy reason suffice for war, according to the author, but to achieve this credibility it was "not necessary for the United States to win the Vietnam War".

I had to reread this section several times to be sure I hadn't misconstrued his meaning or come across an editing lapse. No, it was really there: the reason to go to war in Vietnam was to Demonstrate our Credibility. We didn't really have to win, or even stay very long. How long? Lind doesn't measure it in months or years. He measures it in lives. This calculation, which befouls page 79, asserts: "Washington should have imposed an informal limit on the number of American lives it was willing to spend". It "ended up spending nearly sixty thousand lives" when, according to Lind, it could only "afford to lose 15,000-20,000 soldiers...before the public turned against it." You don't need to win to retain credibility and prestige, just "spend" 20,000 lives (excluding the 900,000 Vietnamese--they don't count), cut your losses, and split.

Perhaps growing up in the computer age has caused Lind to confuse war with a video game. I certainly hope I'm not the first to point out that American lives, nor Vietnamese lives, are not chips to be spent by him and the other senior fellows in Washington on some nebulous product called American Prestige or American Credibility. Of course, such callous speculation is not new or fresh. The monocled, frock-coated diplomats of the first World War sent millions to the slaughter for...what was it? French prestige? German credibility? There are many things worth fighting for, but prestige and credibility are not among them.

Lind then moves on to another orthodoxy to demolish, what he pretentiously calls the "praetorian critique". This is the notion, held by the expendable grunts in the military, that they were not allowed to win in Vietnam. He dismisses as "myth" this belief held by "92% of Vietnam veterans polled by the VA", and also by Ronald Reagan. He then ticks off a number of reasons why we couldn't seize Hanoi, which boil down to 1)The Chinese would come 2)The Russians would come. But his main "fresh" contention to demolish the stale praetorian critique is that the war was not winnable because the US military was too inflexible to adapt to a guerilla war. But that's okay because we didn't need to win to demonstrate our credibility, which, you'll remember, was the whole point of the war in the first place.

This line of thinking--we have to go to war to show our credibility, but we can't win the war, but that's okay because we can still show our credibility by losing, and the losing can be blamed on the military, and nobody will mention that civilians control the military--this line of thinking is the very fault line that gave rise to the conservative orogeny which continues to this day, which is not coincidentally a movement grounded in common sense and common decency. Common sense tells you you're not going to be the first military in history to win a war by remaining permanently on the defensive. Common decency dictates that you don't send conscripted boys to be traumatized and maimed and paralyzed and killed unless you have a very good reason. Preservation of Prestige is not such a reason. It's not even close.

Back when I was watching this war on TV it never occurred to me that people in power in America could think this way about their own citizenry. This book shows that people like Michael Lind and Lyndon Johnson who view war as a sort of board game or adjunct to the election process are fairly common.

The author does an excellent job of reviewing the geopolitical importance of the Vietnam war and the various theories of geopolitical power that explain the conduct of nations. The book attacks the views of both liberals and conservatives on the reasons for military and political failure in Vietnam. While the reasons for failure and the possible solutions are subject to attack themselves, at least they pose a new way of looking at the war and its aftermath which should lead to a better way of examining our current foreign policy. The book asks the right questions and it helps develop answers to current and future problems of a geopolitical nature. The author's writing style is excellent. The book reads quickly and the concepts are well explained. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in history or politics.

Michael Lind has done an admirable and necessary job of taking on the myths of the Vietnam war that have been promulgated by a self-serving, highly biased media. He has exposed the myths for what they are, at best leftist apologies for Communist atrocities in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, and at worst the lies of avowed Marxists hoping for the overthrow of the United States. What makes this book even more appealing is that Lind himself is politically left of center. He points out the mistakes made by the military, the Nixon administration and the Johnson administration without prejudice. It is even handed, well documented and insightful, an analysis based on examining the Vietnam War as a proxy battle between the U. S. and the Soviet Union as part of the Cold War, which Lind considers WWIII. Along with Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the 60s by Peter Collier and David Horowitz, former editors of Ramparts; Radical Son, the memoir of former Communist and 60s radical David Horowitz; Big Story, by Peter Braestrup; Stolen Valor, by B. B. Burkett and Glenna Whitley; Phoenix and the Birds of Prey, by Mark Moyar; and The Sacred Willow by Duong Van Mai Elliott, this book is necessary reading for anyone who really wants to understand the Vietnam war, the 60s and 70s, and the war's after effects.

An important contribution of this book is the historical perspective provided on protest, not just against Vietnam, but against all the American wars, including WWII. So much of this has been forgotten by Americans, or is simply not taught in our history texts, for reasons that are clear on reflection. I remember a friends father, well read and well carefully considered, telling me about the protests in favor or Hitler in Madison Square Garden before we entered WWII while we discussed the Vietnam War protests. He, as much as anyone, helped me make the right decision, which was to serve in Vietnam. Besides the isolationist tradition and the anti-war tradition of certain segments of American political thought, the actions of Presidents Johnson and Nixon are put in the perspective of the actions of former presidents during earlier wars, and in the end both Johnson's and Nixon's come off looking soft in enforcing existing laws. For example, Jane Fonda could have been tired for treason under the laws of the United States, as they applied to Vietnam, and scould have suffered the fate of those WWII traitors she emulated, which was prison. Another traitor, Tom Haydn, was given a Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter for actions that were actually legally treasonable.

I have found two errors that should be corrected in any further editions. First of all, the author refers to Marine Corps CAP units as Combined Action Patrols, rather than as Combined Action Platoons, which is what they were. They were so called because they joined about 12 Americans, a rifle squad of Marines and a Navy Hospital Corpsman, with a Platoon of Vietnamese Popular Forces, local militia, in the defense of a village. The Combined Action Platoon lived in the village they defended from Viet Cong terrorism. They have been studied in several books, including Michael Peterson's The Combined Action Platoons: The U. S. Marines' Other War in Vietnam. I have been fortunate to have met many former CAP veterans. One of them, Tim Duffie of Ohio, runs a web site dedicated to the Combined Action Platoons. While on a recent trip back to Vietnam to find where a good friend of mine, a Navy Corpsman, was killed in January of 1968 while serving with a CAP unit near Tam Ky, I met several Vietnamese former Popular Force veterans who showed me the area where their unit had been located. They still remember the Marines fondly and asked about several who had been with the unit. They remembered my friend.

The other error is on page 156 where Lind writes "South Vietnam's Park" instead of Korea's Park. Of course, the error is readily apparent from the context, and Park is properly identified on the following page.

That the author of this book attempts to stake out some middle ground on our failures in Vietnam, would appear, on the surface, to be a worthy exercise. I for one am in agreement with the author that both the extreme left and the extreme right's views of the war are overly simplistic. Lind puts the war into the bigger picture of the cold war that lasted from the end of world war II to the fall of the wall. THe book, in its savage portrayal of the North Vietnamese and Ho Chi MInh, is sure to garner the support of the right and enrage liberals who saw the war as a civil war we should have stayed out of. BUt to the author's credit, those on the right who fault the government for not letting the military unleash its full power are sure to be infuriated by the author's criticism of the miltary and its leaders lack of imagination and competence in dealing with a guerrilla type war it was completely unprepared for. But in attempting to stake out some middle ground, the author has tried to make many arguments overly simplistic. Furthermore, his constant obvious and not so obvious attempts at casting everything in terms of good and evil takes away from the book's attempt to stake out some middle ground between both views of the war and those who were on each side. That there was more than two sides to the war also seems to escape his attention. It was not just a war between the U.S and the Soviets as fought by their puppets, but one involving a myrad of sides and issues, as well as explanations. In the end, the only thing one really takes away from the book is that no one viewpoint, including this author's, is sufficient at chroniciling the causes, execution, and aftermath of the war and America's invlovement in it. One must, if one seeks to really undestand what went on there, read a plethora of books on the war. They would include; Fire i nthe Lake by Frances Fitzgerald, The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam, A Bright Shining Lie by Michael Sheehan, Vietnam by Stanley Karnow, About Face by Colonel David Hackworth, WE were Soldiers Once, and YOung, by Galloway, and Dispatches, by Michael Herr. Real history, real understanding of its consequences, is ultimately far more complicated than this book or any one book can account for. With the war's end really only 25 years removed, and its conseqences still being played out in the world, the final word o nthe war has not yet likely been written anyway.