The Limits of U.S. Military Capability: Lessons from Vietnam and Iraq

2 Leveraging the Adversary’s Forces: The Wars in Vietnam and Iraq

In irregular warfare, the United States is confounded by an abundant variety of military limitations—inappropriate US doctrines and capabilities, deficient and counterproductive capabilities, offsetting adversary capabilities, and— perhaps—eventual exhaustion. These limitations are featured in this chapter, first, in a look back at US combat in Vietnam, and then in an examination of the sources, evolution, and challenges of the Iraq conflict. The chapter recognizes that, in both conflicts, the US military capitalized effectively on its superior mobility and firepower but could not overcome the adversary’s asymmetric tactics. It concludes, further, that the US shift toward a counterinsurgency strategy in Vietnam and Iraq was not the fix that is commonly supposed. Counterinsurgency principles were not fully applied in either conflict and “worked” in both due to a host of felicitous conditions. Indeed, changes in these conditions eventually doomed the Vietnam effort and could yet reverse US progress in Iraq. Even a dedicated US effort might not provide the United States with the resources to succeed at counterinsurgency. chapter two Leveraging the Adversary’s Forces The Wars in Vietnam and Iraq 24 The Limits of U.S. Military Capability The Vietnam War In Vietnam, the United States was severely tested. It fought the war that it was best prepared to fight—playing to US conventional strength—not the war that was arguably appropriate given adversary strategy and advantages. After years of fighting, the United States adjusted its approach to give more weight to counterinsurgency principles. It is debatable, however, whether such attention earlier to rural “pacification” would have ensured a more favorable outcome for the United States. What is apparent is that the United States encountered an opponent that exploited US weaknesses by playing to its own strengths, including the capability and will to wait out the opposition. In the end, the United States was unable to defeat an adversary that increased its reliance upon conventional force. Failure was foretold by the US conduct of the war, in the air and on the ground. The War in the Air Throughout the Cold War period, air power advocates argued that wars are won effectively and efficiently by establishing air superiority over opponents and then pounding them into submission. Their case was based on reputed lessons from World War II, when Germany and Japan were subject, soon before their defeat, to massive bombardment in tonnages that dwarfed those in the earlier years of the conflict.1 The various justifications for the bombing and its questionable effectiveness fueled debate over the role of strategic air attacks in the years to follow . But US policymakers and planners concluded from World War II, as well as the Korean conflict to follow, that the United States must play to its superiority in speed, maneuverability, and firepower. Reflected first in the Eisenhower administration’s declaratory shift to a massive retaliation doctrine,2 the message was clear: the United States would not allow the enemy to play to its own advantage by choosing the time, place, intensity , and scope of combat. For many military officials, the unforgivable constraint, imposed by US policymakers in the Korean War, was allowing China, out of fear of escalation, to serve as an enemy sanctuary. Unable to target the complete enemy infrastructure, the Air Force dismissed the long and costly Korean War experience as an “aberration” that said little about the basic utility of air power (Clodfelter 1989, 3). If anything, the wartime lesson was that next time the United States must dictate the terms of conflict and capitalize more fully upon overwhelming US superiority in air power.3 Leveraging the Adversary’s Forces 25 From the Air Force perspective, this is not what the United States did in Vietnam : once again, the Air Force maintained that it was tied down by civilians. With Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara choosing a weekly target list (Gelb and Betts 1979, 137), the administration intended the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign (1965–68)—at least in its initial phases—to send a mixed message of resolve and restraint to North Vietnam. By restricting when, which, and how targets were hit and escalating and deescalating attacks gradually in response to the communist war effort in the South, the administration believed that it could communicate that the United States would do whatever it would take to defend South Vietnam and that it wished to...