Why the North Won the Vietnam War (review)

In 1958 Professor David Herbert Donald of Columbia University gathered a group of distinguished scholars at Gettysburg College on the eve of the centennial of the Civil War to examine the international, strategic, economic, and social factors that led to victory for the Union and defeat for the Confederacy. Taking a cue from that conference, Professor Marc Jason Gilbert and eight notable scholars of the Second Indochina War have produced a collection of essays to explain why North Vietnam and the southern Communist insurgents prevailed in their war against the United States and South Vietnam. Too often in the past, Gilbert notes, historians have focused on the role of the United States to the point that "the Vietnamese themselves, their sacrifices and their aspirations, rarely appear in American postmortems on that war." This book aims to correct that skewed perception as well as to expose "some of the intellectual tripwires that have for so long frustrated . . . historical consensus over the war" (pp. 2-4).

Although the reader will come away knowing more about the American shortcomings in Vietnam than about the Communist strengths that made them such a resilient foe, the book offers a useful and concise overview of the factors that led the North to victory. One of the strongest sections is the introduction in which Gilbert deftly lays out the American historiography of the Vietnam War. Contrasting the "orthodox" with the "revisionist" schools of thought, he critiques the intellectual as well as political underpinnings of both and notes a shift in recent years towards a "greater consensus on the war" (p. 30). Other chapters in the book address such topics as the limitations of allied intelligence, the shortcomings of the pacification program, the impact of the antiwar movement, and the ideological and strategic debate that put the southern insurgents at odds with the more cautious North Vietnamese leaders in the early 1960s. Absent is a discussion of the U.S. media because Gilbert concludes that the subject has been thoroughly covered elsewhere and had comparatively little influence on the outcome of the war.

The only notable deficiency in the book is the lack of a chapter discussing how the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese armed forces fought and ultimately prevailed against the Americans and the South Vietnamese in the critical years between 1965 and 1975. A discussion of Communist tactics, organization, logistics, and technology—noting weaknesses as well as strengths—would have been a welcome addition to what is otherwise a fine and well-written study particularly suited for undergraduate and graduate student instruction.