(2003.05.20)


 Thirty years ago, America was the greatest power in the world, despite a formidable Soviet threat. Yet its armed forces were exposed to their most humiliating defeat ever, beaten by a peasant army in the jungles of Vietnam. In the three decades since, however, U.S forces are again without equal, and America's jealous rivals are aghast at the sheer power and competence of the Pentagon's deployments. What on earth has been going on?

 It is worth recalling the measure of the Vietnam debacle, if only for contrast with today's story. The Tet Offensive dealt a heavy blow to a U.S. military already reeling under the humiliation of a decade of setbacks in those far-off jungles. U.S. land power, even when raised to more than 500,000 troops, had stalled and grown tired, and sea power had a limited impact. Even the fabled Marine Corps, which had fought so well in the Pacific War a mere 25 years earlier, was failing. And air power, the key to victory in the modern age, proved ineffective. Back home, public discontent grew to such anger that it unseated a president and cast a shadow -- ''the Vietnam syndrome'' -- over the nation for years.

 The contrasts with the campaign against Iraq this spring are so obvious, they are not worth dwelling on. Air power now showed itself to be devastating and precise. Sea power -- from carrier-launched aircraft to submarine-launched cruise missiles to the immensity of America's ''sea-lift'' -- was intimidating. Army and Marine Corps units, as well as special troops, employed great operational subtlety. One could of course argue that desert combat is easier than jungle warfare. And Saddam Hussein's dictatorship showed much less resolve than the committed Viet Kong and North Vietnamese battalions. But there is a third explanation in the story of the rise of victory from defeat: the remarkable recovery of the American military's capacities to fight and prevail.

 Recovery from defeat is always complex and must occur at many levels since the debacle itself was usually caused by numerous factors. At the very least, one must look at this turnaround in five areas: in the intellectual and pedagogical sphere; in personnel recruitment; in technology; in financial support; and in political approbation. Over the past years, all five streams have flowed in the same direction, to the distinct benefit of the U.S. military.

 Those charged with rebuilding the demoralized armed services had perhaps the greatest challenge. Previous assumptions -- that victory was assured provided you had more tanks and planes than your enemy -- didn't work in Vietnam. Officers now had to learn from Clausewitz that war was inherently political; and from Napoleon that it was also inherently psychological. They had to learn, usually from the remarkable new Office of Net Assessment at the Pentagon, that it was no use having a good strategy if your ground tactics were poor and your operational efficiency inadequate. Finally, they had to learn from history. Officers returning from the Vietnam War to a year of study at the Naval War College in Rhode Island were surprised to find that the first book they studied was ''The Peloponnesian War.'' When they came to Thucydides' account of the disastrous Athenian campaign in Sicily, they knew why -- they had just experienced the same. There was much to be learned, and the U.S. war colleges were out ahead in the task of relearning.

 Equally decisive was the transformation of recruitment policy: from conscription to all-volunteer. This did not come lightly. It had been widely believed that a key reason for victory in the Second World War was that people of all classes were recruited into the national effort; thus, it was hard to learn that many Americans sent to Vietnam resented the mission and even became unwilling to fight. It was also widely feared that volunteer forces would be staffed disproportionately by the poor (read: blacks, Southern farm boys, Hispanics), and that educated WASPs and Jewish elites would avoid service. There was a lot to that concern, as the later recruitment statistics showed. But evidence from the British armed services, where national service had been abolished in 1957, proved compelling. A volunteer force had better morale and dedication than one composed of men drafted for two years of their lives. Men who signed up for nine or 15 or 21 years were the backbone of the services, and far less time was wasted on training a fresh annual intake of reluctant conscripts. When America finally introduced this momentous change, the efficiency of the U.S. armed services rose by leaps and bounds. Nowadays nothing terrifies military planners more than a proposal to reintroduce a draft. One need look only at the sad fate of the Red Army in recent decades to understand why.

 A further reason for creating volunteer, professional forces was that weapons systems, and thus warfare itself, were becoming more technical and demanding. Training an 18th-century pikeman to march in battle was one thing; training a 20-year-old to con a submarine, fly an F-16 fighter or execute a parachute drop was another. Logistics, physics, chemistry and engineering all had to be in the curriculum, as did some appreciation of psychology and leadership. Fortunately, the U.S. was the leader in new technologies and possessed an enormous defense-industrial base that allowed for amazing synergies -- between the Internet, satellite imaging, supercomputers, precision-targeting controls -- and thus for a new generation of weapons.

 But all this new weaponry -- not to mention the higher wages of a professional military -- cost money, indeed, vast amounts of money. And while liberal politicians were unenthusiastic about military spending in Vietnam's aftermath, the Reagan and Bush administrations of the 1980s began pouring money into defense as the world entered a new stage of the Cold War. The absolute totals were trimmed in the Clinton years, but never by as much as conservatives charge. (Even under the Democrats, the Pentagon budget was equal to that of the next six or seven powers combined. Today it is equal to the budgets of the next 14 or 15 highest spenders.) Moreover, the remarkable growth of the U.S. economy permitted high defense expenditures without the strains of the preceding decades.

 The fifth element, the political, pertains to the remarkable transformation in public attitudes toward the military. Vietnam veterans who were met with curses must find it difficult to relate to the present atmospherics. Now politicians vie to show their patriotism, requests for supplementary defense spending sail through Congress, and chauvinistic media like Fox News or the New York Post acclaim American power without bothering to ask how that power may be used for the longer-term good.

 Will this procession from defeat to victory continue indefinitely? The combination of elements favoring the United States looks impressive, but history has a record of throwing out surprises. The Vietnam debacle was less than 30 years after 1945. What twist and turns will the next 30 years bring, especially if the U.S. economy falters, defense budgets are slashed, new enemies arise and the public turns firmly against foreign wars?

 In the midst of the current rejoicings, we ought to remember the caution of Thucydides, and other classical authors, that the chief reason why great empires collapse is pride, arrogance and over-confidence -- in their words, hubris. The transformation of the American military in the last quarter-century may give quiet satisfaction. But too much triumphalism is unwise. The real question -- What to do with this unprecedented power? -- still lies ahead.

 (Paul Kennedy is a professor of history and the director of International Security Studies at Yale University.)