The Vietnam Analogy: Why It Doesn't Work
By Brantley Smith
Posted On August 22, 2005

Slowly and deliberately over the last three months analogies between the Vietnam War and the war in Iraq have been creeping into the mainstream media. It is a predictable tactic of those who oppose the war in Iraq and now Senator Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, has jumped on the bandwagon. It is a bandwagon out of tune with the facts and with history.

Carl Von Clausewitz, the celebrated war theorist of the 19th century, said that the foremost responsibility of a nation’s civilian and military leaders is to understand the kind of war on which they are embarking. The nature of any war will have two sides, depending on which side of it one is on. The Vietnam War was, from the standpoint of the United States, a war of communism versus democracy, two different and diametrically opposed philosophies of government and economics. It was a campaign in the much larger Cold War to stem the tide of both a nation and a movement whose stated goal was imposition of communism worldwide. The vital interest for the United States was the containment of an ideology of governing that was a clear threat to democratic and free economic ideals.

In the present war, the United States is faced with just as serious a threat but its nature is much different. We are not fighting a nation or a political ideology. We are fighting an insidious religious and cultural movement that transcends borders. Its primary tactics are terrorism and manipulation of the mass media. Historical precedents are hard to find.

For our enemies in the Vietnam War, the nature of the war was clear and simple. It was a war of nationalism against yet another imperialistic country. To the North Vietnamese and their leaders, the United States was simply following in the footsteps of France and Japan. Nationalist warfare was a way of life in Vietnam; imperialist enemies come and go and the United States would follow the French in defeat. We did. Our enemies in Iraq in no way resemble the North Vietnamese Army or the Viet Cong, with the possible exception of the VC’s ruthlessness in terrorizing their countrymen. The worst of those opposing us in Iraq are not even Iraqi and could care less about Iraq or its people. Again, it’s all about preserving and spreading a radical and repressive culture based on a hijacked religion or, in the case of the Sunnis, reclaiming the lost power of an illegitimate and murderous regime. What radical Islam fears most is a liberal, democratic society in the heart of Mesopotamia. It would be a setback from which they might never recover.

Any other comparison of these two unique wars pales in comparison to the fundamental nature of the conflict. That said, though, consider the following:
1. At the height of the Vietnam War, there were over 500,000 US troops deployed and we had to fall back on the draft to support required troop strengths. In Iraq we have less than 130,000, all volunteers.
2. In South Vietnam we supported a government corrupt to the core and it did not improve much as the war matured. In Iraq we started by toppling a government corrupt to the core and we are now successfully building a legitimate one from the ground up.
3. Casualties: During the worst year of the Vietnam War, 1968, 16,869 Americans were killed. In the last 27 months in Iraq 1,343 Americans have died due to hostile action.

Are there some similarities that are significant? There is certainly one that comes to mind: our unwillingness to cross international borders to bring the war to closure. During most of the Vietnam War the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos and Cambodia was our Achilles Heel, yet we refused to interdict the flow of manpower and materiel pouring down it and into South Vietnam. We find ourselves in a similar situation now with Syria to the west and Iran to the east. This is a policy we need to reconsider and both of these antagonists need to know that if they support our enemies and the enemies of the Iraqi people, we will cross the border to interdict the flow of both terrorists and their materials of death. If they are not with us, they are against us.

One similarity that we should all fear is the American people’s reaction to war at home. In Vietnam the beginning of the end came with the TET Offensive in 1968. Though we won the battles during that bloody year, we ultimately lost the war in the minds of the majority of Americans. America had reached its threshold of pain and embarked on a path that led to the fall of Saigon in 1975. It would be a tragedy for the current generation of Americans to follow the same path to defeat. The North Vietnamese themselves were not a threat to the American people or our way of life. Our current enemy is, and defeat is not an option. We need to stay the course. Democracy in Iraq, in any form, would be a crushing blow to our enemies and would further marginalize, or even break the back of, Al Qaeda.

Brantley Smith lives in Tullahoma, Tennessee and can be reached via email at usmcengr@aol.com.

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