North Vietnam/USA Conflict (Resolved) PDF

North Vietnam/USA Con ict (Resolved) Behavior fi fi fi fl fi USA Decisions The frst of many important USA decisions during this interstate, inter-region con ct was to issue a virtual declaration of war against the Communist-ruled Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), in response to a...

North Vietnam/USA Con ict (Resolved) Behavior fi fi fi fl fi USA Decisions The frst of many important USA decisions during this interstate, inter-region con ct was to issue a virtual declaration of war against the Communist-ruled Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam), in response to a perceived attack by North Vietnam torpedo boats on an American naval vessel in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 4, 1964. The decision, which took the form of an act by the USA Congress—overwhelming approval of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 10—was strategic in content, scope, and impact: President Johnson was granted farreaching, virtually unlimited, authority to cope with what was designated a grave threat to USA security and interests. This act provided the legal basis (and perceived legitimacy) for all subsequent USA military acts during the 11-year war (1964–1975). [Informally, the USA participated in the broader Vietnam protracted con ct for a much longer period, as a major supplier of fnancial aid and weapons to France during its war with the DRV, North Vietnam, from 1950 to 1954, as well as the dispatch of military advisors to South Vietnam in the early 1960s, followed by massive direct military involvement in the Vietnam War for a decade]. The frst USA tactical military decision relating to this emerging interstate con ct was to respond quickly to the then-USA identifed North Vietnam naval attack on August 4, 1964: it took the form of a retaliatory act against four North Vietnam torpedo boats (Operation Pierce Arrow) soon after Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. The next two tactical military decisions, to launch air raids against Vietcong and DRV forces in 1965, were more substantive and signifcant, for they led 9 SELECT CASE STUDY FINDINGS ON INTERSTATE CONFLICTS … 295 to direct American military involvement in the Vietnam War. One was the short Operation Flaming Dart, in response to a Vietcong attack on USA barracks in Pleiku on February 7. The other was a prolonged air campaign, Operation Rolling Thunder, from March 2 to November 2, 1965, which set the pattern for other lengthy American military acts during that war. A minor tactical military decision a week after the start of Operation Rolling Thunder—the deployment of 3500 Marines to provide more security for USA bases in Vietnam—was a hardly noticed signal of American participation in the ground war. The next USA military decision—President Johnson’s acceptance, early in August 1965, of a Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) recommendation to send 100,000 USA troops to Vietnam—was much more signifcant, a strategic decision, for it marked the frst substantive escalation of American involvement in that predominantly land war. The contents of a signifcant strategic military-cum-political, peaceoriented USA decision were conveyed in President Johnson’s surprise announcement on March 31, 1968, soon after the unanticipated largescale North Vietnam-Viet cong Tet Offensive in February—of the cessation of almost all USA bombing and a USA invitation to North Vietnam to engage in formal peace talks. The importance of that announcement was greatly enhanced by the addition of Johnson’s personal political decision which was bound to have far-reaching consequences for subsequent USA policy and behavior relating to the Vietnam War, that is, for the North Vietnam/ USA con ct: he also indicated that he would not be a candidate in the USA presidential election scheduled for the next 8 months. Almost certainly linked to this fundamental shift in USA policy toward American involvement in the Vietnam War, the year 1968 also witnessed the beginning of a prolonged American attempt to implement its strategic decision—to achieve ‘Vietnamisation.’ This policy goal had two complementary elements: steady, stage-by-stage withdrawal of USA forces from Vietnam and the stage-by-stage transfer of responsibility for the continuing conduct of the war to the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam), along with an escalation of USA airstrikes throughout Vietnam to persuade the DRV to re-enter peace negotiations. This ambitious but unsuccessful program continued until 1973, the virtual end of USA active engagement in that long war. The frst substantive policy decision on the Vietnam War by the newly elected President Nixon in 1969 was to attempt to entice North Vietnam to enter serious peace negotiations; the attempt failed—it was premature. 296 M. BRECHER In February 1971, once more with the active support of his principal adviser on the Vietnam War, as on USA foreign policy challenges generally, Henry fi fi fi fi fi Kissinger, the USA president made and implemented the highly controversial and much-criticized decision to launch a massive secret bombing of Vietcong-North Vietnam military sanctuaries and the ‘Ho Chi Minh’ supply trail in Cambodia and Laos. The magnitude of the Laos operation, castigated as grave war crimes by many, is evident in two awesome quantitative indicators. The USA dropped more bombs on Laos in 1971 than it did everywhere throughout World War II, killing 350,000, 10% of the Laos population. Another massive bomb decision by Nixon and Kissinger, the ‘Christmas Bombing’ of North Vietnam in December 1972, again designed to compel the DRV to re-enter peace negotiations, was successful. It led directly to the decision—by both of the principal adversaries—to sign the Paris Peace Accord on January 13, 1973, which marked the end of the formal USA involvement in the Vietnam War. USA Decision-Makers There were two clusters of crucial USA decision-makers in the North Vietnam/USA con ct and the Vietnam War, which were synonymous in duration. During the Lyndon Johnson phase (1964–1968), there were four ‘principals’—President Johnson, Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense, Dean Rusk, Secretary of State, and McGeorge Bundy, National Security Adviser. There was one notable dissenter from the ‘hard line’ propounded by the key decision-makers in Phase I of the Vietnam War, George Ball, Under-Secretary of State in both the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations (1961–1966): he was known, then and later, as ‘Vietnam’s Devil’s Advocate.’ During Phase II (1969–1973), there were two crucial USA decision-makers on the Vietnam War and the North Vietnam/USA con ct: President Nixon and his National Security Adviser, Kissinger, the principal USA negotiator with North (and South) Vietnam since the beginning of the Nixon presidency in January 1969. USA Decision Process The USA Constitution and political system generated an array of institutions and constraints on the exercise of authority by the USA President in the conduct of foreign policy: the role of Congress in creating a state of war by the United States and any other state; supervisory control over all Departments in the Executive branch of Government; the 9 SELECT CASE STUDY FINDINGS ON INTERSTATE CONFLICTS … 297 vetting of presidential appointments to senior posts in the foreign service and the armed services; and the allocation of funds for all USA involvement in foreign wars. Theoretically, these and other constraining powers by a noncooperative or unfriendly Congress could seriously undermine the president’s formal authority as commander-in-chief and head of the Executive branch of Government. In practice, however, as evident in the analysis of all interstate protracted con cts in which the USA was/ is a principal adversary, the USA decision process is much less complex. The authority and power to make and implement strategic and tactical political and military decisions on issues relating to adversaries (and allies) in wars and military and political crises is highly concentrated in the president and his appointed aides. For example, this was evident in USA international crises within the USA/USSR interstate protracted con ct, such as the Berlin Blockade (1948–1949) and Cuban Missile crises (1962). So it was in the North Vietnam/USA con ct as well: all of the strategic and important tactical decisions by the USA in Phase I (1964–1968) were made by President Johnson and the small group of his appointees to the key national security positions in the USA government. During Phase II (1969–1973), the important decisions relating to North Vietnam and the Vietnam War were made by President Nixon and/or National Security Adviser Kissinger. This is not to dismiss or denigrate the advisory-pressure role of others whose input to these decisions, whether sought by the president or initiated independently by other senior offcials, such as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Chairs of the House and Senate committees on the armed forces and foreign affairsrelations, may infuence, at times signifcantly, the decisions taken by the president and a core group of aides. There may also be infuence exerted by pressure groups—the media, prominent political party leaders, interest groups, the media, and most broadly, public opinion. These were evident, for example, in President Johnson’s announced decisions on March 31, 1968—the cessation of most bombing in Vietnam and the invitation to North Vietnam to enter peace negotiations. Thus the decision process may, and often does, extend far beyond the core decision-makers and infuence their choices. However, the USA decisions on March 31, 1968 were made by President Johnson, not by any of the institutions or persons in the Executive or Legislative branches of the USA Government, or the leaders of the fi fi fl fi fi fi fi fi fi Armed Forces or the Intelligence agencies. In sum, the USA decision process on national security and foreign policy 298 M. BRECHER issues is complex at one level of analysis, namely, for advisory roles by select Congressional leaders and senior offcials in relevant bureaucratic Departments—advisory or pressure roles; it is much less complex at the decision-maker level of analysis. In the North Vietnam/USA con ct, an atypical case, Kissinger played a dual role— National Security Adviser and decision-maker. Yet, as those who have analyzed this interstate con ct in depth have noted, and Kissinger himself acknowledged in his memoirs, his role as decision-maker, with few exceptions, was authorized and vetted carefully by President Nixon. DRVNorth Vietnam: Decisions The overall strategy of North Vietnam for the achievement of its primary objective—the unifcation of North and South Vietnam in a Communistruled state—preceded the onset of its protracted con ct with the USA in 1964. A policy decision by the Politburo of the DRV Workers Party to pursue the dau tranh (two-track) strategy—combining carefully planned military action with revolutionary zeal to counter superior USA weapons already made available to South Vietnam—was communicated in a July 1962 letter from Le Duan, Secretary-General of the Workers Party, to the Communist organizations and cadres, notably the Vietcong, in South Vietnam. This dual strategy, which also called for continued adherence to the 1954 Geneva Accords that led to the ‘temporary’ creation of two Vietnam states, would facilitate the unhindered economic reconstruction of North Vietnam’s damaged economy along communist lines and the achievement of unifcation of the two Vietnams, via continued resistance to USA plans to transform all of Vietnam to a USA-type capitalist dependency. The frst signifcant strategic DRV decision in the North Vietnam/ USA protracted con ct, on November 22, 1964, soon after the USA Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (August 10, 1964), but before the initial display of superior USA military power in the Vietnam War—Operation Rolling Thunder, in January 1965—was to accelerate the war against South Vietnam, with the goal of a total military victory before the beginning of large-scale USA military intervention. (It took 11 years for North Vietnam to achieve total military victory over its southern adversary and the USA) The most wide-ranging military decision by North Vietnam and its South Vietnam af iate, the Vietcong, during this interstateintrastate con ct was to launch a “General Offensive and Uprising” on January 31, 9 SELECT CASE STUDY FINDINGS ON INTERSTATE CONFLICTS … 299 1968, the date of the offcial TET holiday; the date of the decision is not known. The scope of this operation was vast: 84,000 North Vietnam and Vietcong troops attacked simultaneously fve of South Vietnam’s major cities, 36 of 44 provincial capitals, and many district central towns. While there is disagreement about its degree of military success, the psychopolitical effects of this daring North Vietnam-Vietcong initiative on a totally surprised USA leadership were profound. A bipartisan group of former government offcials from both American political parties advised President Johnson to set in motion steps to disengage from Vietnam. Most important, the TET Offensive was the catalyst to President Johnson’s 31 March announcement noted above—declaring a cessation of almost all USA bombing and inviting the DRV to enter peace negotiations, the frst meaningful step in a belated peace process, along with his no-less surprising statement that he would not stand for re-election in November 1968. As such, the TET Offensive can be termed the DRV’s most decisive militarypolitical decision during the prolonged Vietnam War-protracted con ct. While there were many North Vietnam tactical decisions throughout the Vietnam War, they will not be discussed here. Two important DRV decisions in December 1972 and January 1973, both related to termination of this con ct and lengthy war, merit attention. The frst was a quick response to the massive USA Christmas Bombings in late December 1972—the North Vietnam Politburo made the decision to return to negotiations in Paris, as demanded by President Nixon and Kissinger, his National Security Adviser. The fnal North Vietnam strategic decision in this interstate con ct, also noted in the above discussion of USA behavior—since this decision was shared by the two principal adversaries—was to sign the Paris Peace Accord, the terms of which constituted a major triumph for the DRV. The USA made three major concessions in this peace agreement. It agreed to withdraw all its forces from Vietnam (at their peak, more than 500,000 troops). The USA also recognized the Provisional Revolutionary Government, the governmental arm of the Vietcong’s National fi fi fi fi fi fi Liberation Front, in the areas under its control in South Vietnam. Thirdly, the USA acknowledged North Vietnam’s demand that Vietnam be regarded as one country. The Paris Accord ended the USA formal involvement in the Vietnam War, though the war—between North and South Vietnam— continued until April 1975, when the Vietcong-North Vietnam forces occupied Saigon, later renamed Ho 300 M. BRECHER Chi Minh City, the capital of the South Vietnam region in the unifed Communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). North Vietnam Decision-Makers During Phase I of the North Vietnam/USA con ct (1964–1969), as for the preceding three decades—since his creation of the Vietnam Workers Party in 1935—the pre-eminent fgure in the DRV was its founding father, Ho Chi Minh. While comparable in stature to the other Communist luminaries of his generation, Stalin in the USSR and Maotse-tung in China—Stalin was 11 years older, Mao 2 years younger—Ho was more revered than feared by his colleagues and subordinates. He valued and considered carefully the views of members of the Workers Party Politburo, notably: Le Duan, his long-time principal aide and successor in 1969, who was to serve as Secretary-General of the Workers Party until his death in 1986; General Nguyen Chi Thanh; General Vo Nguyen Giap, the legendary victor in the decisive Battle of Dien Bien Phu (1954), which terminated France’s empire in Indo-China and in the no-less decisive war of attrition against superior USA forces, in weapons and military manpower; Pham Van Dong, the DRV’s long-time Prime Minister, and Le Duc Tho, later, North Vietnam’s negotiator with Henry Kissinger from 1969 until their signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973. They, along with the other 8 members of the Party Politburo, were decisionmakers, not subordinate Party offcials. North Vietnam: Decision Process The most notable traits of the pivotal institution in the North Vietnam decision process, the Workers Party Politburo, were its longevity and stability. As noted in the discussion of the China/Vietnam con ct, as late as 1977, 8 of its 14 members had been appointed as early as 1960, and 6 in 1953. All had served as aides to Ho Chi Minh, and 6 had served on the Politburo in the climactic phase of the struggle against French colonial rule, culminating in the 1954 triumphant Battle of Dien Bien Phu. They also shared a commitment to Communist ideology. As comrades of long standing, who had been engaged in candid debates on issues that were often signifcant for the survival of their party and regime, they had developed a relationship of mutual respect and shared values. However, they did not always agree on policy. Instructive evidence of the ability of the Communist leadership in North Vietnam to disagree sharply and openly was a profound disagreement on a crucial Party vote a few months after the USA Congress 9 SELECT CASE STUDY FINDINGS ON INTERSTATE CONFLICTS … 301 approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 10, 1964. The militant faction in the Politburo, headed by Le Duan and Nguyen Chi Thanh, secured a majority over the faction, including Ho Chi Minh, that favored peaceful coexistence with South Vietnam: and they persuaded the Ninth Plenum of the Workers Party Central Committee, a much larger and, formally, a more authoritative Party body than the Politburo, to approve Resolution 9 on November 22, 1964, rejecting negotiation with the South Vietnam regime and decreeing full mobilization of North Vietnam’s human and material resources to accelerate the war effort, with the aim of achieving a total military victory before the arrival of direct American military intervention. While some members of the Central Committee who openly expressed dissent later lost their seats, there were no known after-effects on membership of the Politburo. North Vietnam/United States Con ct: Con ct-Sustaining Acts Political Hostility by both of the principal adversaries in this con ct was visible from the beginning of the 1950s, long before the Onset of this protracted con ct. The USA was politically (and economically) active in support of France during its war against North Vietnam [later, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV)], from soon after the latter’s proclamation of independence in 1946 until the traumatic defeat of France at the 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu, noted earlier. For the United States, the struggle between France and its former colony, North Vietnam, was part of the ongoing Cold War between the ‘Free World’ and international Communism, led by the Soviet Union. Thus, in March 1954, the USA publicly announced its intention to form a coalition against Communism in Southeast Asia, dramatically expressed by its refusal to endorse the Geneva Accord in July 1954, ending the France/North Vietnam War, and in September, the USA-initiated South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) made a commitment to defend non-Communist (South) fi fi fi fi fi fi fi fi fi fi fi fi fi Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos against a military attack. North Vietnam (the DRV), in turn, sought and received (primarily) verbal expressions of support from both the USSR and China in 1961 and thereafter. Political hostility was also evident in the negative response by the USA to informal offers to negotiate an agreement to end the burgeoning con ct—by the USSR and North Vietnam in 1961, by the USSR, China and the UK in 1963, and even after the onset of North Vietnam-USA military hostilities, the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, by France’s 302 M. BRECHER president, the UN Secretary-General, and the North Vietnam government, in 1965 (Hess 2010, 152, 153, 157). Thereafter, continuous military escalation dominated the North Vietnam/USA con ct, until long after the political shock generated by the large-scale Tet Offensive by North Vietnam and the Vietcong in January 1968. Prolonged negotiations led to an agreement to end the war, the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973, but the fghting continued until 1975. Violence was the most frequent and most signifcant con ct-sustaining technique in this con ct, from the Gulf of Tonkin incident in early August 1964 until the ignominious evacuation of USA forces and diplomats from Saigon on April 29, 1975. Violence escalated with the February 7, 1965 Vietcong guerrilla night raid on the USA and South Vietnam Army barracks at Pleiku. The USA retaliated with an air attack on North Vietnam military targets, Operation Rolling Thunder, on February 19. Thereafter, violence was endemic for the next 10 years. The highlights were: the Tet Offensive, January 30–February 24, 1968, a decisive event in which 84,000 Vietcong troops attacked USA and South Vietnam military bases and cities throughout South Vietnam—a military setback for North Vietnam and the Vietcong, but politically signifcant because it demonstrated their determination to win the war and shocked the USA public and political leadership, notably President Johnson; the (North) Vietnam Spring Offensive, February 22–May 12, 1969; the (Vietcong-North Vietnam) Invasion of Cambodia, March 31–June 30, 1970; the (South Vietnam-USA) Invasion of Laos, February 8–March 25, 1971; the (USA) Vietnam Ports Mining, responding to another North Vietnam spring offensive, March 30–May 8, 1972; the (USA) Christmas Bombing, 14–December 26, 1972, leading to the Paris Peace Accords; and the Final North Vietnam Offensive, December 14, 1974–April 30, 1975, culminating in the completion of the USA withdrawal from Vietnam (Brecher and Wilkenfeld 1997, 189–198). The estimated cost of the Vietnam War in casualties was enormous: North Vietnam and Vietcong: 50,000–2 million civilians dead; 1,176,000 soldiers dead or missing; 600,000 wounded; South Vietnam: 361,000–2 million civilian dead; 220,000 soldiers dead; United States: 58,220 soldiers dead; 303,644 wounded; Other states—Australia, New Zealand, Laos, Thailand, South Korea, small numbers. 9 SELECT CASE STUDY FINDINGS ON INTERSTATE CONFLICTS … 303 Economic Discrimination USA economic sanctions against North Vietnam long preceded—and followed—their interstate con ct, which began with the Gulf of Tonkin Crisis in August 1964: they were part of USA support for France during its war with North Vietnam from 1947–1954 and after and they developed into a full trade embargo and the freezing of unifed Vietnam’s assets in the USA, following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. The trade embargo remained in force until 1994. However, given the minimal economic relations between North Vietnam and the USA from long before the onset of their con ct, this con ct-sustaining technique was the least frequently used and the least infuential of the four types of CST in this protracted con ct. Verbal Hostility was more evident than the economic con ct-sustaining technique (CST) in this protracted con ct and was used by both of the principal adversaries as a supplement to the Violence dimension of their con ct, mainly to enhance the loyalty and commitment of their respective forces but in continuous attempts, by propaganda, to wean soldiers of their adversary to change their loyalty and thereby to change the balance of local military power in their favor. Defection fourished in the ranks of both North and South Vietnam, but, in the absence of reports on this dimension of their armed forces, the effectiveness of propaganda used by the two competing Vietnams cannot be meaningfully assessed. Because of its greater frequency than economic con ct-sustaining acts, verbal hostility can be ranked as a distant third type of CST, after violence and acts of political hostility in terms of its impact on the evolution of this con ct