Riding the Red Horse (42 page)

Continued Soviet supply shipments arriving by sea in late 1964 produced a rapidly deteriorating situation in South Vietnam. For the first time, North Vietnamese Army (NVA) regular troops infiltrated South Vietnam. In early 1965, after the Viet Cong attacked U.S. bases, Johnson authorized the bombing of North Vietnam (Operation Rolling Thunder) and committed American ground troops. This forced Mao to permit Soviet supply shipments across China. These arms, the products of Soviet-North Vietnamese aid pacts in April and June, included surface-to-air missile systems, radars, modern jet aircraft, rockets, artillery, ammunition, fuel, vehicles, and transportation equipment. These shipments precipitated the deployment of even more American troops, and the ground war began in earnest.

Johnson planned to win in Vietnam through pure attrition, i.e. killing as many of the enemy as possible. He repeatedly assured Hanoi that he would not invade North Vietnam or the Communist sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia. Thus, Hanoi could safely send large forces to the South to match American troop increases, and the result was continued conflict at ever-higher levels of troop commitment, just as the Soviet Union intended.

American intervention undercut Mao and strengthened the pro-Soviet faction. Mao was able to remain in power only because the Soviets insisted on dominance over China rather than equal partnership. The pro-Soviet Chinese faction could not accept this. Mao knew that his position would only deteriorate as the American presence in Vietnam increased. Therefore, he created an organization personally loyal to him—including a force of shock troops called the Red Guards—and began directly attacking his pro-Soviet enemies. In sum, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which tormented and killed tens of millions, was a factional conflict over political power and the direction of foreign policy masquerading as an ideological dispute. Meanwhile, Mao repeatedly signaled America that he desired improved relations. Washington ignored him. The administration fatuously hoped that the Soviets would restrain Hanoi. They based this hope on Soviet “moderation” elsewhere in the world, which was actually designed to facilitate continued American entrapment in Vietnam.

The rapid buildup in 1966 enabled American troops to push enemy forces away from the coastal cities and into the central highlands by early 1967. At that point, however, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara changed his tune. Instead of calling for further troop expansion, as he had since March 1965, he demanded a ceiling on troop levels. More importantly, he recommended abandoning the objective of ensuring an independent, non-Communist South Vietnam. He reversed himself after realizing three things: firstly, America would not be able to kill enough enemy troops to win the war before the 1968 election; secondly, improved relations with China were possible; and finally, American intelligence had seriously underestimated the Soviet missile threat.

In early 1965, the most current assessment of Soviet strategic forces was the October 1964 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) 11-8-64. This NIE estimated that the USSR had 200 ICBMs and would have perhaps 300 ICBMs in 1966 and 400 in 1970. It asserted that the Soviets might regard 400 ICBMs as an “adequate deterrent” and stop building. Thus, going into Vietnam, Johnson believed that he outnumbered the Soviets 5:1 in ICBMs (1,065 American to 200 Soviet) and that he would retain a comfortable 2:1 advantage in 1970. Two years later, the story was quite different. NIE 11-8-66, dated October 1966, estimated that the Soviets had 350 ICBMs. At the newly observed rate, the Soviets would achieve parity with America “sometime in 1969” and could have a fifty percent margin of superiority (1,600 ICBMs) in 1971. Gone was the comforting delusion that the Soviets would settle for an adequate deterrent. Now, the CIA considered that the Soviets would definitely seek parity and might even try for a “first strike counterforce capability”, i.e. the ability to destroy the American ICBM force in a surprise attack. Given that the Soviets were deploying ICBMs much faster than previously anticipated, a continued commitment of military resources to Vietnam was extremely unwise.
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In mid-1966, the Soviets noted American success on the ground in South Vietnam and that China was signaling Washington. To keep America pinned, Moscow again increased their assistance to Hanoi. Nevertheless, America and South Vietnam succeeded over the coming year in killing large numbers of Communist troops and pacifying large areas. In the summer of 1967, the North Vietnamese decided they had to take drastic action to regain the initiative. The Soviets agreed to supply the arms necessary to support a major offensive. In September, Moscow and Hanoi concluded the largest aid agreement yet.

Very likely, the Soviets did not expect the Tet Offensive to achieve military victory or prompt American withdrawal. To the contrary, they expected Washington to escalate, declare national mobilization, and perhaps even invade North Vietnam. Such actions would, they hoped, cause the PLA to abandon Mao and support the pro-Soviet faction. To increase the pressure, the Soviets created a threat in the north. They tripled the number of divisions on the Chinese border from fourteen in 1965 to forty-five in 1969. Soviet troops increasingly harassed Chinese border guards. The Soviets also increased the number of medium-range ballistic missiles in Siberia, and began basing ground troops in Mongolia.

In the Tet Offensive, America snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. The Communist assault was repulsed with heavy casualties. As the Soviets expected, Johnson wished to expand the war and counterattack into Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam. He sent reinforcements in early 1968 not to stave off defeat, but to exploit success. However, he was unable to secure a consensus within the administration and the Democrat party for further escalation. Thus, he announced his withdrawal as a presidential candidate in 1968, imposed a troop ceiling, and publicly abandoned the pursuit of victory.

Johnson’s announcements of March 1968 undercut the Soviet claim that American forces in Vietnam threatened China. But, the August invasion of Czechoslovakia raised concerns that the USSR would apply the “Czech solution” to China. Accordingly, Mao ended the Cultural Revolution, in which the PLA played a key role, and bolstered China’s defenses.

Overall, Johnson’s presidency was a strategic disaster for the United States. He left the country seriously weakened in strategic and conventional military power. As noted above, the United States declined from five-fold superiority in ICBM strength in 1965 to parity in 1969. The military services deferred modernization of their equipment. American military personnel in Europe dropped from 235,000 in 1965 to 169,000 in 1970. The combat readiness of the Army at home and in Europe plunged as experienced troops were sent to Vietnam and as drug abuse and racial strife increased.
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Politically, Johnson allowed the containment structure to erode in Europe, South Asia, and the Middle East. Economically, he failed to maintain the Bretton Woods dollar system; Germany and Japan surged ahead as economic competitors. Finally, domestic unrest in the United States indicated his failure to sustain the national will and popular consensus. The Vietnam War was the basic cause of all these problems. In fomenting and sustaining this war, the Soviets had succeeded spectacularly in weakening America relative not only to her primary enemy but also to her allies. America’s distress clearly benefitted the Soviet Union, Germany, and Japan.

President Nixon addressed his two major problems—how to counter the growth of Soviet power and extricate America from Vietnam—through improved relations with China.
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He capitalized on the Soviet effort to coerce China with heavy-handed military threats. In early 1969, Nixon signaled his willingness to withdraw from Vietnam and preserve a divided Indochina. This resulted in a de facto rapprochement and an immediate reduction in the flow of Soviet supplies across China. The Soviets, perceiving this evolving cooperation, launched heavy attacks along the Chinese border in order to intimidate the Chinese. They also instructed Hanoi to launch an offensive to delay American troop withdrawals.

In the wake of major Sino-Soviet border clashes in the summer of 1969, the Soviets threatened a nuclear strike on China. Nixon responded with the Guam Doctrine. The doctrine is best known for “Vietnamization”, in which South Vietnam would assume primary responsibility for its own defense so that American forces could withdraw. However, the doctrine also provided an American nuclear shield “if a nuclear power” (i.e., the USSR) “threatens the freedom of a nation allied with us or of a nation whose survival we consider vital to our security” (i.e., China). To emphasize the American nuclear guarantee, Nixon put Strategic Air Command on the highest level of alert in October 1969, as Sino-Soviet tensions peaked. The Soviets de-escalated the border conflict, realizing that such pressure was futile and only pushed their enemies together.

Constriction of the overland route increased the importance of oceanic supply. Soviet supplies unloaded at the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville supported NVA operations from sanctuaries in Cambodia near the South Vietnamese border. In 1969, Nixon launched B-52 strikes against these sanctuaries and the 60,000 NVA troops in Cambodia. Rapprochement with China permitted more decisive action. In March 1970, America backed a coup in Cambodia, and the new government closed Sihanoukville. One month later, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces moved across the Cambodian border, destroying NVA bases and vast quantities of weapons and ammunition. This greatly reduced Hanoi’s ability to attack southern South Vietnam. Strategically, the loss of the Chinese overland route and Sihanoukville left Hanoi with a single lifeline through which to receive Soviet aid – the port of Haiphong.

The North Vietnamese shifted their logistical hub to southern Laos. South Vietnam, with American support, attacked these bases in April 1970. The “Laotian Incursion,” often described as a disaster, was in fact a success. South Vietnamese forces inflicted disproportionately heavy casualties on NVA troops in Laos, and prevented Hanoi from launching an offensive from Laos until 1972.

In mid-1971, the Soviets realized their strategy faced potential defeat. Their conciliatory overtures to China during the Laotian Incursion were rejected. Moscow perceived that with continued Sino-American cooperation and progress in Vietnamization, America could withdraw from Vietnam. Indochina would then return to the pre-1965 status quo, which both America and China preferred. Moscow decided to change course and facilitate American withdrawal from Vietnam, after which Hanoi would attack the South. The Soviets thus gambled that when Hanoi resumed the offensive, America would neither reintroduce its own troops nor provide Saigon with sufficient aid to avoid defeat. Moscow’s objective from 1971 to 1975 was no longer to keep America trapped in Indochina, but to create a powerful, unified pro-Soviet Vietnam to strengthen the containment of China.

The Soviets exploited a serious weakness in the American peace proposal of May 1971. This proposal involved American withdrawal and a cease-fire in place prior to a final settlement. Hanoi had an obvious incentive to await American withdrawal, and then introduce forces into South Vietnam before the cease fire. Moscow helped Hanoi plan a new offensive throughout late 1971, and sent large quantities of weapons and equipment to Haiphong.

Hanoi’s assault, known as the Easter Offensive, commenced in March 1972. North Vietnam brazenly launched its entire regular army, including fourteen divisions and several hundred tanks, against South Vietnam. Nixon reacted strongly with American airpower, including B-52 strikes on North Vietnam. More importantly, U.S. aircraft mined Haiphong harbor, denying Hanoi further replenishment of ammunition, weapons, or fuel from the USSR. South Vietnamese forces were able to halt the attack, but had to concentrate to do so. This opened much of the previously pacified countryside to renewed guerrilla attacks. Hanoi’s guerrillas attempted to grab as much land as possible prior to the anticipated settlement, but South Vietnamese forces beat them back with heavy casualties.

After the B-52 strikes on North Vietnam in December 1972—the “Christmas Bombing”—North Vietnam lay prostrate. Nevertheless, the United States agreed to extremely disadvantageous peace terms in January 1973. For reasons, and using methods beyond the scope of this paper,
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Nixon’s political enemies within his administration trapped him in the Watergate scandal and forced him to accept a disastrous settlement in Vietnam. Although Nixon remained in office for another eighteen months, he was a mere figurehead. He lost control of foreign policy to a group, whose most visible figure was Henry Kissinger, that pursued diametrically opposed goals on every front, but especially in Vietnam.

Nixon wished to support South Vietnam so that America could maintain a presence in Indochina. His opponents sought total American withdrawal from Indochina, and engineered the defeat of South Vietnam. Nixon, once trapped, had to accept a peace agreement that required America to withdraw and cease attacking North Vietnam but did not require the withdrawal of 300,000 NVA troops from South Vietnam. On paper, North Vietnam agreed to withdraw from Laos and Cambodia and to pursue unification only through peaceful means. Of course, Hanoi flouted the ceasefire and her other promises almost immediately. Congressional legislation in June 1973 cut the funding for American combat activities in Indochina, and set the stage for the conquest of South Vietnam two years later.

Nixon’s strategy, to which China had assented, incorporated China into the global anti-Soviet alliance and preserved the divided structure of Indochina. The new American strategy cast aside the two main components of the Sino-American rapprochement. Washington would now abandon South Vietnam and attempt to improve relations with the Soviets. The Chinese rightly regarded both actions as treacherous and harmful to their interests. The new strategy assumed that China, pinned between a unified Vietnam in the south and the USSR in the north, would have no alternative but dependence on America. However, American bad faith ignited a leadership crisis in Peking. Mao—whose policy of cooperation with Washington had failed to produce the desired results—was forced to reinstate the previously purged leaders of the pro-Soviet faction. Henceforth, China would maintain a position equidistant between Washington and Moscow. Washington planned to play Moscow and Peking against each other; instead, Peking played Washington and Moscow against each other.