Vietnam Sydrome Follow-Up

I took a bit of a hiatus that has been part work related, and part it's-85-degrees-in-San Francisco-so-I-am-going-out-to-play.

Anyway, last week I wrote an essay about the contrasting views of the Lessons of Munich and of Vietnam Sydrome, and had a couple of thought provoking comments of which I'd like to respond.

Stone Holmes says (excerpt):

Your history is solid, but just to play devil's avocado, remember that it took the U.S. almost 5 years from the commencement of WWII hostilities to commit the entire armed forces to the struggle. This was against a state enemy whose clearly evil intentions and capabilities far exceeded those of the mostly stateless threat you correctly detail (don't worry, I hate Iran too).

...Vietnam was a disaster, I agree, for American attitudes toward foreign threats. But our collective soul is a more complex spirit than your focused Bismarckian gestalt can harness. I wish everyone understood power dynamics as well as you do, but it's certainly better that make our arguments in public on matters of such import.

Beyond the scope of my initial post, I do see an inevitability to a more cautious, non-interventionist view of American foreign policy, and in general find that to be a good thing. However, undeniably there is going to be a force of evil that rises up in the world that has the capability to do great damage, and it will not be stopped by anything but the threat of, or actual force.

The Lesson of Munich was clearly the driver behind our containment policy of the Soviets. There were a few flare-ups that never rivaled any of our WWII engagements, but we openly threatened the Soviets with massive nuclear retaliation for any egregious attempts to threaten our allies* or our interests throughout the world. Former Soviet satellites offer us solid proof of the long-term damage a totalitarian regime can have, not only on the subject country's population, but also its impact of regional socio-economics and politics. Mutually Assured Destruction ended up being the deterrant that kept both sides from switching offensive schemes from three yards and cloud of dust, to fun'and-gun.

Now comes the context of Vietnam Syndrome. Before I finish my thoughts on exactly what that means, let me throw my Uncle's comment into the frey:

I knew I shouldn't have gotten your blog address. Painful to struggle through that essay.

The problem with public attitude about Iraq cannot be laid simply to VN syndrome. You don't give the public enought credit. I think most view the problem as being caught in situation where the administration is persuing a losing stragegy. The situation gets worse daily without a plausable plan to reverse the slide into chaos and civil war (training locals will not do it under such conditions that now exist). This was not anticipated by our war planners and little has been done to adapt to the unanticipated. There certainly are ways, but the will to pay the price is not politically viable. I'm sorely afraid this effort will fail and for the same reasons that VN failed....not the military, but the politicians. There is plenty of blame to go around, but I do not believe is lays at the feet of a naive, timid public.

It seems that all that sweltering East Coast heat and humidity have done wonders to your reading comprehension. I specifically spoke about the fact that Vietnam Sydrome was NOT something that effects a pacifisitic public (which your entire retort is based upon). What I actually said was this:

The definition of Vietnam Sydrome has been re-written by many on the Left as an epithet used by "conservative Americans" towards those who felt that Vietnam was destined for failure. In this false definition, these conservatives falsely cling to the hope that the United States could have won the Vietnam War if it wasn't for undesirable pacificsm at home.

This essay tries to argue that the actual definition is not the antithesis of this false definition, but a general syndrome where policies and worldviews have been heavily influenced by the events in Vietnam -- so much so that that U.S. policy has suffered as a result.

Vietnam Sydrome is the effect of a long engagement that America found itself on the losing side of. Not only was it an effort that failed to acheive its objectives, but it was ultimately an effort that made us look like bully beating up on a small child. The effects were not limited only to the public's mind, but also in the minds of the leadership of our country. The lessons learned from Vietnam have produced some good poilcies (support for anti-Communist forces in Latin America) and some really bad ones (Iran and our current situation in the Middle East).

Vietnam Sydrome is agnostic towards virtue, and exposes an objective weakness: we have limited ability to eliminate a threat from an enemy that refuses to be negotiated with. Vietnam Sydrome clouds this question, and causes the public and our leaders to reflexively knee-jerk away from dealing with this extremely important question. Because of this, we do not have a widely agreed upon and accepted standard to deal with these threats. If history provides us a guide, the future is grim -- it usually takes the absorption of a major attack for us deal with these kinds of threats.

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* The NATO Alliance was brilliant solution to the problem of Soviet expansion. The doctrine of an attack on one is an attack on all kept the Soviets at bay.

The Lesson of Munich was aptly applied in Eastern Europe without firing a shot.

Posted by 10 fingers 6 strings at July 24, 2006 08:58 AM | TrackBack