Did America win the Vietnam War?
The U.S. Army reported 58,177 losses in Vietnam and the South Vietnamese 223,748.
The North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong, however, are said to have lost more than a million soldiers and two million civilians. In terms of body count, the U.S. and South Vietnam won a clear victory. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
The US’ involvement in the Vietnam War is a real-life example of debated notions of American credibility. Notions, which further worsened the war situation and made it become much more complicated to deal with.
Fighting the Vietnam war, the first aim for America was to maintain its global role by deterring the expansion of communism, but gradually became a burden for maintaining its credibility. In order to know why and how America became so confused about Vietnam’s situation. We have to first understand what credibility means to the president. The term “credibility” is not uncommon to appear in most American president’s speeches. In particular, Nixon’s excerpt from No More Vietnam’s indicating:
“Thus did our defeat in Vietnam tarnish our ideals, weaken our spirit, cripple our will. And turn us into a giant and a diplomatic dwarf. In a world in which the steadfast exercise of American power was needed more than ever before.” (Richard Nixon, 1985)
In President Nixon’s eyes, he used the term “diplomatic dwarf” to imply that if America does not do anything to Vietnam, the outcome will not only let foreign countries acknowledge America’s weakness. But also the US credibility will be largely weakened.
Instead, we need to steadily show American power to the world of communism in order to sustain the U.S. credibility. Also, continuing analysis of this quote, it is implicitly revealed President Nixon’s imperialism on Vietnam. Specifically, he stated about the need for American interference more than ever. Which implicitly reviewed that maintaining Vietnam’s order is undoubtedly an American duty. Instead of rationally considering all the aspects that needed to be dealt with once we are involved in the war. From the words in this excerpt, we acknowledge President Nixon advocated increasing America’s involvement in the war to further demonstrate US credibility.
Similarly, to further support this point, in the book Richard Nixon and the Vietnam’s war, David Schmitz also asserted that President Nixon often considered the war in Vietnam as a ‘cold war term’ during his campaigns.
This will lead him to encourages the involvement of U.S. force into Vietnam for the sake of containing the spread of communism, as well as expressing the U.S. credibility. By action first, it will give America a good position for deterring future wars. It’s important to interpret President Nixon’s perception of credibility because it plays a dominant role in the making of the US Vietnam policy.
By escalating the US involvement into Vietnam, President Nixon at first wanted to use heavy military force to achieve the victory in aims to end the war sooner.
Notably, this policy had the title: “Madman Policy”. Which aimed to push North Vietnam to end the war and be captured as an American victory.
However, from a series of military acts such as bombing of Cambodia and the Duck Hook plan, all the efforts in desire to end the war failed to achieve the goal. As the numbers of criticism and domestic opposition increased, President Nixon had to abandon his original Vietnam policy and formed a new plan that involved de-escalating American presences in Vietnam, which became known as “Vietnamization”. We could witness that Nixon’s Vietnam policy had shifted from a traditional military way into a withdrawal or Negotiating plan. Noticeably, by shifting Vietnam policy into a flexible and soft manner. Involved with starting to negotiate with the Soviet Union and China, it does not mean that President Nixon had given up the US credibility.
It left more pressure on President Nixon in terms of dealing with this more complicated situation.
In particular, since once you withdraw from Vietnam, you will leave the space open for your enemies. And also let your enemies, Soviet Union and China, to think of you as a paper tiger, which leads to the crisis of US credibility and its global role. Thus, in order to seek a way to pull back from Vietnam. But still preserve the US credibility became an essential aim of Vietnamization. By preserving Saigon as a means, President Nixon still maintained the US credibility and expressed it to the credibility of the communist counterparts and to its foreigner allies.
Viewing credibility, we could also view it from the lens of domino theory in an imperial fashion. Besides sustaining the U.S. credibility. There is another reason for Nixon interested in preventing Vietnam from the Communists’ hands, which was Southeast Asia’s economic value.
The loss of Vietnam to communism not only threatens the US’s credibility. But also harms the notion of the ‘free world’. This concept was first asserted by the Truman and Eisenhower administration. That if we lose Vietnam, we actually also lose its raw resources and its market. David Schmitz also bought up the perspective of economic value of Vietnam to the U.S. and indicated that:
“If communism triumphed in Indochina, all of Southeast Asia would fall ‘under Communist domination or Communist influence,[and] Japan, who trades and must trade with this area in order to exist, must inevitably be oriented toward the Communist regime.’” (Schmitz, p.4)
If one country had communist rule, it would be isolated by the free market. The critical thing is that it will also influence other nearby nations since Southeast Asia countries are so dependent on each other in terms of raw material and food export. Thus, it will create a domino effect leading from one country’s fall to another, and eventually will harm Japan’s system. On a larger scale, in the President’s belief, the spread of communism may become even faster, and when the whole Asian countries have collapsed, the notion of communism will further spread to the Middle East region.
Then, at that time, the world distribution of resources’ control would fall within the communists’ hands. And the concept of a free market will deteriorate. Thus, there is a notion emerging that initiating action first will give us better control of the domino effect and prepare the future wars, rather than waiting for nothing. In order to further demonstrate this idea, Noam Chomsky revealed a more deeper analysis of the importance of the imperial economy strategy for the US, stressed that:
“It was emphasized that Japan is the keystone of United States policy and that the loss of South-east Asia […]would Drive Japan to accommodation with the Communist bloc permitting Red China.” (Chomsky, p.57)
Chomsky believed that the role of Japan stands a critical position for the US in terms of implementing and influencing its policy within South-east Asia.
He emphasized that if we lose Vietnam to the communists, there will be a future threat to the fate of Japan, which eventually affects our interest. Particularly, he used the phrase ‘the Communist bloc’. Which implied that if Vietnam was influenced by communism. As a result, it will become an impediment for the US to further pursue its ideology and strategy to Asia in terms of democracy and the free market. This will lead to two factors: one is decreasing the US global position and appraising the Communist economic development.
The second one is indirectly weakening the US credibility. Continuing to analyze Chomsky’s excerpt in depth, it is not unclear to find a sense of imperialism in his statement. In Chomsky’s perception, he asserted the idea of the US global imperial strategy. Which encouraged the US to first secure its economic interest in Southeast Asia. Implicitly, he proposed that initiating involvement in Vietnam was not only solely for considering the purpose of American credibility. But also considering the idea of securing American global economic interest.
In the book, The Backroom Boys, Chomsky stressed that Japan’s economy served a major role in aggregating the economies of Asia Pacific regions together. Which foreshadowed a future “co-prosperity sphere”.
In order to secure Japan’s economy and US global plan, it seems clear that containing Vietnam from Communists fitted the framework of imperialist motives, rather than actual willingness to help Vietnamese.
Contrary to the previous perception of credibility, William Fulbright stressed an opposite view of this notion. In his work, The Crippled Giant, he stressed his opposed view to the prestige and credibility by criticizing the US escalating its involvement in Vietnam. He believed that withdrawal from the war would not actually decrease the US credibility. But instead help the US to gain more status. Fulbright also proposed that the American policy makers should make a very rational judgment on handling the Vietnam situation. Instead of involving recklessly.
By demonstrating different experts from President Nixon in his work, Fulbright opposed Nixon’s view of credibility on different levels. Initially, Fulbright criticized Nixon for lacking historical information of dealing with the foreign affairs at first, and stated that:
“He simply does not know that-he has no way of knowing. He is a politician not a prophet[…] if he knows anything about history at all, he knows that as an analogy, the past is more likely to deceive than to instruct”(Fulbright, p.84)
Furthermore, he criticized that Nixon had less knowledge to understand a nations’ history.
By using the term ‘politician’, Fulbright argued that his understanding of history was heavily based on biased evidence, which sometimes will mislead him in making false decisions. In particular, he viewed President Nixon had less information to understand Vietnam in terms of its history and Chinese history. It is interesting to see Fulbright’s criticism of President Nixon in this angle. In order to understand his lens, we have to fully understand Fulbright’s perception on dealing with foreign policy. Fulbright focused on acknowledging a nation’s history and then came out with a flexible strategy to deal with it.
To be more specific, in Senator J. William Fulbright TV interviews about China in the United States, Fulbright denied the statement. Equating China power as Hitler, by explaining the Chinese have a different history. He then elaborated the reason about Chinese hatred of the West because of the Opium war to illustrate it has a reason to show aggressiveness to the West, unlike of Nazi’s acts.
It is important to know, by opposing the traditional West belief about China as Nazi, Fulbright ceased to rectify the wrong belief about China, and warned to President that evading Vietnam is not a wise and worth decision. Since if we evolve to start a war with China through dealing with the Vietnam situation, it will become a totally different story.
Further reviewing Fulbright’s perception, we could also understand his assertion on the Vietnam policy in terms of Credibility. He argued that the war with Vietnam was not based on Vietnamese interest, but instead based on the US interest itself. Notably, in his work of, The Crippled Giant, he criticized that:
“This thesis holds that the major purpose of the war in Vietnam is external to Vietnam: to regain the trust and confidence of our friends and allies all over the world by demonstrating American’s fealty to her ‘commitments’”(Fulbright, 85)
Reading through this passage, Fulbright argued about the for the US policy makers, war with the Vietnam. Is not meant to change Vietnamese life. But to demonstrate of the American credibility and prestige to the US allies. Fulbright believed that, in US policy makers’ minds:
Credibility is about how others interpret to you, how we appear to others. And how to convince others that believe our appearance.
Acknowledging this concept, it is clear to understand why President Nixon wanted to escalate US’s involvement into Vietnam. And showed American aggressiveness to the counterparts. In contrast, Fulbright, opposed to this notion as a form of generalization. Illustrated the idea that not every nation will think this way as we do.
Fulbright showed that many US allies condemned our involvement in Vietnam as a reckless and irrational act. Which implied that it was unnecessary for the US to be involved in Vietnam. Instead, Fulbright promoted that withdrawal from Vietnam is the proper way to regain the status and credibility for Americans in a world position. By further demonstrating this argument, he proposed two critical points. The first point that Fulbright argued was Vietnam is a very small country that consists of only 14 million people. While, on the other hand, the United States is an extremely powerful nation, fighting for this tiny country. In order to prove a success of containing communism to the world, became worthless and impotent.
For the second point, Fulbright against President Nixon’s belief of making a settlement with Vietnam will make the US a paper tiger.
In Fulbright’s interview, he employed Russia’s withdrawal decision in the Cuban War as an effective example to further analysis. Although after Russia’s several withdrawals, it is still a dominant and powerful nation in the world. Similarly, Fulbright believed that if the US made a settlement and withdrew from Vietnam, it would not lose its status but instead regain its credibility.
Did America win the Vietnam War?
Moving to the analysis of McGeorge Bundy, we could view the term credibility in another perspective. In McGeorge Bundy’s belief, he viewed that the US needs to maintain a sustained Reprisal when dealing with Vietnam. He proposed that the US needed to protect credibility first hand in order to locate a good position, instead of responding to communism passively. He also asserted that the US could lose the war, but it needed to address it with a strategy to still show its credibility to the world.
In the work, A Policy of Sustained Reprisal, Bundy stated about sustained reprisal strategy, stated that, “we should execute our reprisal policy with as low a level of public noise as possible […] but we do not wish to boast about them in ways that make it hard for Hanoi shit its ground” (Bundy, 236)
Analyzing through this piece, we could acknowledge, Bundy stated that the reprisal policy should initiated as a low point. And then gradually increase or decrease its intensity matching with the North Vietnam’s acts of violence. Implicitly, Bundy indicated that we should send the message to North Vietnam to imply that we have the ability and willingness to defeat you. Although it could start as a low ‘signal’ with less intensive tone, in Bundy’s belief, it was essential to demonstrate our credibility to the Communists that our willingness to oppose North Vietnam at the first point. Bundy proclaimed the aim of showing the signal was to give the burden to communists. And let them rethink their action in terms of the boundary.
Did America win the Vietnam War?
There should be a specific connection to pair an act of reprisal to an outrage by North Vietnam. But then as the program takes off. Acts of reprisal do not need to necessarily be in connection with specific acts of violence. This pattern of reprisal seems to not have total victory in mind and wants to develop a program to retaliate against the Vietcong sporadically.
Moreover, Bundy believed that even if we had a chance to lose the war, it was still worth protecting the US credibility, indicating that:
“It may fail, and we cannot estimate the odds of success with any accuracy – they may be somewhere between 25% to 75%. What we can say is that even if it fails, the policy will be worth it” (Bundy, 237)
Reading through this excerpt, we could have a better understanding of Bundy’s notion. Regardless of loss of the war and the numbers of troops sent. Bundy believed it was worth it to protect US credibility within the Sustained Reprisal. Bundy often believed in a global perspective and viewed US credibility in a global position. By operating reprisal policy in a consistent manner, Bundy proposed that even if America was to fail. The policy set into motion would be worth it.
In Fulbright’s words, to view Bundy’s belief, it ‘dehumanized the pattern of decision making’. By ignoring life and death, Bundy treated people as a component of a strategic plan. Not only has Bundy expressed the dehumanization of American soldiers but admits to a plan of failure. The wide range of 25-75% should never be a justification for intervention. Bundy failed to realize the sacrifice that is made not only by American soldiers. But the Vietnamese as well.
Based upon the lens of President Nixon, Domino Theory, Noam Chomsky, William Fulbright, and McGeorge Bundy. We gain a more comprehensive and multidimensional way of understanding US credibility when dealing with the Vietnam situation.
In conclusion, through learning, analyzing, and breaking down different understandings. We could also perceive how the United States involvement in Vietnam became a complicated situation and hard to pull back. The United States found that it was no longer fighting a war to better the lives of the South Vietnamese. But they were fighting a war only to make themselves look better from a global perspective.
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Did America win the Vietnam War? Written by Wenzhe Guo
Did America win the Vietnam War?
