Iraq & Vietnam: The Weak vs. US Military Policy - Martin van Creveld

[plover]

Israeli historian and military theorist Martin van Creveld has written an interesting http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/crevald1.html . van Creveld has written extensively about Israeli general and diplomat Moshe Dayan, and the linked article uses Dayan's visit to Vietnam as a war correspondent as a lens to show strengths and weaknesses of American military policy in each case.

Here's the article's conclusion:

First, according to Dayan, the most important operational problem the US Forces were facing was intelligence, in other words the inability to distinguish the enemy from either the physical surroundings or the civilian population. Had intelligence been available then their enormous superiority in every kind of military hardware would have enabled them to win the War easily enough. In its absence, most of the blows they delivered – including no fewer than six million tons of bombs dropped – hit empty air. All they did was make the enemy disperse and merge into the civilian population, thus making it even harder to find him. Worst of all, lack of accurate intelligence meant that the Americans kept hitting noncombatants by mistake. They thus drove huge segments of the population straight into the arms of the Viet Cong; nothing is more conducive to hatred than the sight of relatives and friends being killed.

Second, as Dayan saw clearly enough, the campaign for hearts and minds did not work. Many of the figures being published about the progress it was making turned out to be bogus, designed to set the minds of the folks at home at rest. In other cases any progress laboriously made over a period of months was undone in a matter of minutes as the Viet Cong attacked, destroying property and killing “collaborators.” Above all, the idea that the Vietnamese people wanted to become Americanized was an illusion. All the vast majority really wanted was to be left alone and get on with their lives.

The third and most important reason why I think Vietnam is relevant to the situation in Iraq is because the Americans found themselves in the unfortunate position where they were beating down on the weak. To quote Dayan: “any comparison between the two armies… was astonishing. On the one hand there was the American Army, complete with helicopters, an air force, armor, electronic communications, artillery, and mind-boggling riches; to say nothing of ammunition, fuel, spare parts, and equipment of all kinds. On the other there were the [North Vietnamese troops] who had been walking on foot for four months, carrying some artillery rounds on their backs and using a tin spoon to eat a little ground rice from a tin plate.”

That, of course, was precisely the problem. In private life, an adult who keeps beating down on a five year old – even such a one as originally attacked him with a knife – will be perceived as committing a crime; therefore he will lose the support of bystanders and end up by being arrested, tried and convicted. In international life, an armed force that keeps beating down on a weaker opponent will be seen as committing a series of crimes; therefore it will end up by losing the support of its allies, its own people, and its own troops. Depending on the quality of the forces – whether they are draftees or professionals, the effectiveness of the propaganda machine, the nature of the political process, and so on – things may happen quickly or take a long time to mature. However, the outcome is always the same. He (or she) who does not understand this does not understand anything about war; or, indeed, human nature.

In other words, he who fights against the weak – and the rag-tag Iraqi militias are very weak indeed – and loses, loses. He who fights against the weak and wins also loses. To kill an opponent who is much weaker than yourself is unnecessary and therefore cruel; to let that opponent kill you is unnecessary and therefore foolish. As Vietnam and countless other cases prove, no armed force however rich, however powerful, however, advanced, and however well motivated is immune to this dilemma. The end result is always disintegration and defeat; if U.S troops in Iraq have not yet started fragging their officers, the suicide rate among them is already exceptionally high. That is why the present adventure will almost certainly end as the previous one did. Namely, with the last US troops fleeing the country while hanging on to their helicopters’ skids.

 

[Polly]

Thank you Plover, I was hoping someone will show us an article like this.

 

[GENIERE]

"the suicide rate among them is already exceptionally high"

About 15/100,000 (a few percent higher than the young average male in the US) vs. the French non-military rate of 20/100,000. Amazing how bias affects rationality!

 

[Polly]

Geniere, your comment is respectfully noted, nonetheless the amiss, if indeed true, would be no more than a speck of dust on what I perceive to be, on the whole, a gem.

 

[plover]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0411-03.htm (the original source for the article, The Toronto Star, apparently won't let you see it without paying) gives the suicide rate as 17.3/100k for troops in Iraq vs a rate of 12.8/100k overall for the U.S. military. The comparison to civilian populations is not the relevant measure. These statistics are from April 2004, and so coincide with the end of a year following the invasion. (There were 24 suicides; assuming 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, I get (24/138000)*100000 = ~17.4) Also:

It doesn't include the deaths of newly States-sided troops, which the Pentagon doesn't count. There have been seven such suicides, including those of two soldiers who killed themselves while patients at Walter Reed Army Hospital. Another three deaths are under investigation.

Already, one in every 10 soldiers evacuated out of Iraq for medical care is suffering from mental-health problems. Outraged veterans groups say the military is totally unprepared for the onslaught of post-traumatic stress disorders coming in the months ahead as more troops return home.

The problem with making unsourced arguments using the wrong comparison is that it makes the critic look more biased than the person they criticise...

 

[adrenaline]

I think Iraq is closer to being a Lebanon-like scenario. The recipe: the multiplicity of groups, the availability of weapons and the presence of foreign militants and states make Iraq look more like Lebanon every day and has the potential of creating the same kind of chaos in Iraq that Lebanon suffered through in the 1980s.

If the general elections in Iraq, scheduled in January 2005, fail to produce some semblance of political consensus across the three main communities -- Sunni, Shia and Kurd -- there is a great danger that the country will see the kind of civil war chaos that gripped Lebanon in the 1980s.

Lebanon had Sunni, Shiite and Christian communities, each of which had its own factional subsets. During the civil war, many of these groups banded together to fight the Israeli invasion. Exacerbating the situation in Lebanon was the headquarters of a foreign group --Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization -- similar to Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's presence in Iraq. (And let's not forget neighboring Syria was also involved in Lebanon, with boots on the ground.) In Iraq, there is talk of introducing forces from Muslim states to assume the day-to-day security role. Meanwhile, local paramilitary and police forces are being overwhelmed by the various militant factions and are unable to shape events -- just as in Lebanon.

 

[Integral]

An interesting read, confirming my gut feelings. As for the suicide issue, it is really way to soon to see the long term moral damage like that which effected the US Forces in the Vietnam era (Source: Personal experience as a Vietnam era vet. (US Navy '69-'73)). Think of it in terms of acute vs systemic, we are looking at the acute issues now, it will take several more years before the systemic effects set in. Give the article thought, even if the final numbers given may not be statistically significant.

 

[Aquamarine]

Interesting, but I would disagree with this:

n other words, he who fights against the weak – and the rag-tag Iraqi militias are very weak indeed – and loses, loses. He who fights against the weak and wins also loses. To kill an opponent who is much weaker than yourself is unnecessary and therefore cruel; to let that opponent kill you is unnecessary and therefore foolish. As Vietnam and countless other cases prove, no armed force however rich, however powerful, however, advanced, and however well motivated is immune to this dilemma. The end result is always disintegration and defeat

There are many examples in history where the strong defeats a weak but popular rebellion. But this usually means ignoring humans rights. Stalin crushed Chechnya by killing 1/3 if the population. Caesar killed and enslaved 1/3 of the population in conquering and crushing rebellions in today's France.