politalX Politics Store - The Myth of Inevitable US Defeat in Vietnam (Strategy & History)

• American Strategy in Vietnam: A Critical Analysis (Dover Books on History, Political and Social Science)

Walton's book is extremely well organized and features 7 main chapters, each of which focuses on one aspect of the conflict and the associated problems. For example, Chapter 4 discusses US involvement and non-involvement in Laos and Cambodia. In July of 1962, President Kennedy signed the Laos Accords, a treaty which required that both the US and North Vietnam respect Laos' neutrality and prohibited any actions therein. Walton argues that it was bad enough to treat Indochina as a divided theatre, but what was worse was that the US continued to honor the treaty long after it was clear to everyone that North Vietnam was violating the agreement and resupplying guerrillas in the South through the Ho Chi Minh trail. This was one of many instances in which the US government wished to have the best of both worlds: extremely limited involvement but also definite victory. It was not to be. Chapter 5 discusses how American policy was severely limited in its thinking because of an unnecessarily high fear of Chinese involvement. US fear of PRC involvement (as had occurred in Korea) stopped many potentially successful policies from being implemented. And yet intelligence showed that the PRC neither wanted to start a war with the US nor would it have been militarily ready (due to the disastrous reforms of Mao) for much of the period of America's involvement.

Ultimately, Walton's analysis is counterfactual and therefore open to debate. Perhaps success in Vietnam would've been more difficult than his book suggests, and maybe it could've been easier! But even if complete success in American terms would've been nearly impossible, the war could have been fought more efficiently and effectively. I found Walton's chapter on airpower to be the most interesting example of this inefficiency. Quite frequently you hear that the US dropped more tons of bombs in Vietnam than it did in all other wars combined. This is true, but as Walton notes, the tonnage is less important than the targets, and in Vietnam the US dropped 70% of its high-explosives in the South! Moreover, he states, the idea that the North was undeveloped and had nothing to bomb was a myth. The North wasn't as industrialised as many countries, but there were still industrial targets in Hanoi and Haiphong which weren't attacked by Johnson. Also, the low level of industrialisation simply meant that the NVA had to import their military technology from the PRC and USSR. Thus the railroads and highway networks were an extremely important target for a strategic bombing campaign and yet the US stayed its hand. Johnson believed that a system of graduated pressure, bombing some targets but holding back from others as a gesture of peace, would bring the North to the bargaining table. He also implemented 16 bombing halts which he hoped would accomplish the same objective. But rather than tempting the North into accepting a settlement, these actions only proved that the US was not fully committed to Vietnam and wished to get out. Walton examines this topic and many others in great detail, providing a plethora of citations and commentary in the excellent footnotes.

I give the book four stars instead of five simply because it is written in a somewhat dry, scholarly tone. The book feels like a collection of academic essays, which is not a bad thing, but the prose isn't thrilling and a reader unfamiliar with Vietnam may not be drawn in. But to anyone with a good background in the history will certainly find this an informative and intriguing read.