Real War (15 page)

Our airlift to Israel and the alert of our forces which I ordered in 1973 with the knowledge that these actions might lead to an Arab oil embargo were a demonstration of how far the United States will go to keep our commitment to Israel's survival and to prevent Soviet intervention in the area.

But that decision was a close call then and it will be even closer in the future as the Soviets gain clear nuclear superiority. The Palestinian time bomb must be defused before we face another Yom Kippur crisis.

It would be presumptuous and foolhardy to suggest that there is some magic formula, some quick fix, for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are, however, some basic principles that must form the foundation of any viable policy. First, whatever group does in fact or claims to represent the Palestinians must recognize Israel's right to exist in peace and must reject the use of terrorism or armed action against Israel or Israeli citizens. Second, Israel must comply with the provisions of U.N. Resolution 242 with regard to the return of occupied territories. However, Israel is entitled to secure borders and cannot and should not be expected to agree to setting up a hostile armed state in its gut on the West Bank. Third, occupied territories that are returned should be demilitarized. Finally, Jordan can play a constructive role in resolving the Palestinian issue.

Having in mind these basic conditions, we must recognize that the Palestinian issue is a rallying cry for radical forces throughout the area and is constantly exploited by the Soviet Union. It is in the interests of Israel and every moderate government in the Mideast to make a maximum effort to resolve it. Unless progress is made swiftly, Egypt's President Anwar Sadat, the most effective voice for moderation in the Mideast, will find his position untenable. In the 1956 Suez crisis we learned how destabilizing a radical Egyptian leader can be. Next to the need to keep the Soviets out of the Mideast, the most important thing is for Israel and the moderate Arab governments to
do everything possible to defuse the Palestinian issue so that Sadat and other moderate Arab leaders will not be driven from power.

•  •  •

In the long term the problem in this area is the Soviet Union. The Soviets may well need access to Middle East oil themselves during the 1980s. Certainly they want the power to affect the flow of that oil to Europe and Japan. With their nuclear-armed Backfire bombers and SS-20 missiles, their Indian Ocean and Mediterranean naval squadrons, their rapid-deployment airlift forces in the Caucasus, their use of ports in South Yemen and the Horn of Africa, and their new air bases in Afghanistan, the Soviets will be able to project their military power into the area in ways that the United States cannot, and with a speed the United States cannot match. It would take us at least a decade to catch up in this regard. This imbalance casts a long shadow over the politics of the area.

The strategic position of the entire Western alliance hinges on reliable access to crude oil from the Persian Gulf. This, in turn, requires that we successfully block the Soviet drive toward dominant influence in the area.

Since oil is not a convenience for the West, but a necessity, the United States and our allies in Europe and Japan must make it a priority to provide economic and military assistance to governments in the area that are threatened by internal or external aggression. We must be ready and willing to take whatever steps, including a strong military presence and even military action, are required to protect our interests. We must also be able to back up our words. The enunciation of a grandiose “doctrine” that the United States will resist a threat to the region by responding militarily is an empty cannon unless we have the forces in place to give credibility to that pledge. If we make it clear that we are prepared to go this far, and if we show that we can, we will not be forced to do so.

It is essential that the United States have base facilities so located as to enable us to project our power convincingly into the area, and to respond swiftly to sudden threats. We also need to assure access to bases in Western Europe that could be used to facilitate airlift and sealift operations between the United States and the Persian Gulf. And then, when we do project
power, we must do so resolutely. Announcing the emergency dispatch of an aircraft carrier to the Gulf only to turn it back to avoid provocation, sending F-15 fighter planes to Saudi Arabia as a show of force but making a point of sending them unarmed—gestures such as these are worse than futile. By inviting contempt, they encourage aggression.

Above all, the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, and other key states must be unequivocally reassured that should they be threatened by revolutionary forces, either internally or externally, the United States will stand strongly with them so that they will not suffer the same fate as the Shah.

It will be necessary not only to be prepared, but to be seen to be prepared. We must not only have the will to use force if required, we must demonstrate that will. We must also have the forces that can be used. We may run risks in defending our interests in the Persian Gulf. We would run far greater risks if we failed to defend those interests.

The H-Bomb is more handicap than help to the policy of “containment.” To the extent that it reduces the likelihood of all-out war, it
increases
the possibilities of “limited war” pursued by indirect and widespread local aggression.

—
B. H. Liddell Hart

When it is all over, it [the war in Vietnam] will undoubtedly prove to be one of the decisive wars of this century and, in its influence, more far-reaching than any other war of its type . . . and its real effects are still to come.

—
Sir Robert Thompson

I regard the war in Indochina as the greatest military, political, economic, and moral blunder in our national history.

—
Senator George McGovern

The final chapters have yet to be written on the war in Vietnam. It was a traumatizing experience for Americans, a brutalizing experience for the Vietnamese, an exploitable opportunity for the Soviets. It was also one of the crucial battles of World War III.

Scores of books have been written on the Vietnam War. Now Hollywood is drawing on it for dramatic material, and in
the process weaving its own interpretations. Each differing view reflects in some measure the author's own particular experience, or lack of experience, with the war.

As Commander-in-Chief during the final five years of the war, my perspective is unique. I believe I understand why we failed in Vietnam. I knew then the stakes we were fighting for. I know now the price we have paid because of our failure, and most importantly, I think I know how we can learn from those mistakes and avoid making them again.

“Revolutionary war”—guerrilla war—has been one of the Soviets' favorite instruments in World War III.

During the period when the European colonial empires were being dismantled, it was relatively simple to co-opt the calls for “liberation”; and new and unstable nations still provide fertile ground for the seeds of revolutionary war. Further, this type of war can be pursued without the consequences, either military or diplomatic, of committing Soviet troops to the battle.

Liddell Hart noted in 1954 that the H-bomb would increase the likelihood of “ ‘limited war' pursued by indirect and widespread local aggression.” Sir Robert
Thompson concurred, and has written that “the invention of atomic weapons and the rise of nationalism” have had an enormous influence on the development of Soviet foreign policy since World War II. He observes: “The great advantage of revolutionary war as an instrument of policy in the nuclear age was to be that it avoided direct confrontation. . . . For the communist powers, therefore, revolutionary war was a low-risk war,” a vital consideration in the nuclear era. The other great advantage of revolutionary war was that it took advantage of Third World nationalism, a force that swept the world soon after World War II and continues strong today. Communism's “anti-imperialist” message was a clever front for totalitarian parties, and many genuine nationalists were hoodwinked by this seemingly legitimate patriotic response to European colonialism. The first testing ground for this new Soviet weapon was East Asia.

•  •  •

After World War II a vacuum of power was left in East Asia. Among the noncommunist nations only the United States had the capability of filling it. The defeat and demilitarization
of Japan, the consolidation of power by Mao Zedong in China, and the availability of Soviet and Chinese arms to any guerrilla force, whether communist or nationalist, that would launch internal or external aggression against noncommunist governments combined to create an extremely dangerous situation throughout the area. Only American aid and even armed intervention could prevent a communist conquest of all of East Asia.

The first test came in Northeast Asia, in Korea. U.N. forces held the line there against North Korean communists armed with Soviet weapons and aided in the later stages of the war by Chinese communist troops. Those U.N. forces were predominantly American.

In Southeast Asia the Japanese conquests in World War II—in which Asians had routed the previously invincible Europeans—sparked a new spirit of independence after World War II. When the Europeans tried to reclaim their colonies, they found they were no longer held in awe; their former subjects would no longer tolerate colonial rule. As a result, they either got out voluntarily or were driven out. Indonesia gained independence from the Netherlands in 1949. The British, weakened by the enormous exertions of World War II, began the long process of withdrawing from “East of Suez.” To their great credit, they played an outstanding role in helping the Malaysians develop an effective program for liquidating that country's communist guerrilla forces. Unfortunately, in Vietnam neither the French nor the Americans who followed them learned adequately from the British experience.

The Philippines and Thailand managed to handle their own guerrilla insurrections without the assistance of American personnel, but with generous provision of American military and economic aid.

Indochina—Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos—was totally within the French sphere of influence. Because the French would not make adequate guarantees of independence, many Vietnamese who would not otherwise have done so joined the openly communist forces of Ho Chi Minh, a charismatic leader with impressive nationalist credentials gained by fighting against the French.

The French suffered 150,000 casualties from 1946 until 1954 in their attempt to hold on to Indochina. In March 1954
10,000 French soldiers were trapped in a fortress at Dien Bien Phu. Though they were only 5 percent of the French forces in Vietnam, their fate sealed the fate of France in Vietnam. They fought bravely for fifty-five days but eventually surrendered. It has been estimated that a limited commitment of conventional American air power might have turned the tide of battle. President Eisenhower considered it but insisted that the United States not act alone. Winston Churchill refused to commit British forces, commenting that if the British would not fight to stay in India, he saw no reason why they should fight to help the French stay in Indochina. Even if the strike had taken place, it is probable that the French would have lost in Indochina eventually because of their stubborn refusal to provide adequate guarantees of eventual independence.

Vietnam was destined to be independent after World War II. The real question was who would control it. The best course for France to have followed would have been to promise Vietnam independence, and then to help the noncommunist Vietnamese prevail over the communist Vietnamese. Even without the actual promise of independence, it still would have been far better for the Vietnamese, as well as for the West, if France had won its war against the Ho Chi Minh forces. Then, when independence came—as it inevitably would have come—Vietnam could have emerged as a free, noncommunist nation. Having taken on itself the responsibility for winning the war, however, France then lost it—not in Vietnam but in Paris. After Dien Bien Phu the French no longer had the will to carry on, and the French government welcomed the opportunity to withdraw from Indochina.

•  •  •

Vietnam was partitioned in 1954, with a communist government in the North under Ho Chi Minh and a noncommunist government in the South with its capital in Saigon. Between the two was a demilitarized buffer zone—the DMZ. Soon Ho's government in Hanoi was infiltrating large numbers of agents into the South, where they worked with guerrilla forces to set up networks of subversion and terrorism designed to undermine the Saigon government.

The interim premier of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, became its first president in 1955. He proved to be a strong
and effective leader, particularly in containing the communist guerrilla forces that were directly supported by the North in violation of the 1954 Partition Agreement. The Eisenhower administration provided generous economic assistance and some military aid and technical advisers, but Eisenhower rejected proposals to commit American combat forces.

Large-scale infiltration from the North began in 1959, and by 1961 the communists had made substantial gains. Sir Robert Thompson arrived in Vietnam that year to head the British Advisory Mission. Thompson had been Secretary of Defense of the Malayan Federation when the communist insurgency had been defeated there. He and the CIA people on the scene understood the importance of local political realities in guerrilla war. In putting down the rebellion in Malaya over the course of twelve years, from 1948 to 1960, the British had learned that local, low-level aggression was best countered by local, low-level defense. Britain had used only 30,000 troops in Malaya, but had also employed 60,000 police and 250,000 in a home guard.

With the excellent advice he was getting, Diem was able to reverse the momentum of the war and put the communists on the defensive. Just as the war in Malaya had been won, the war in Vietnam was being won in the early 1960s. But then three critical events occurred that eventually turned the promise of victory into the fact of defeat.