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.) |