Iraq and Vietnam: Some Unsettling Parallels

For the generations that experienced the Vietnam War, the current conflict in Iraq frequently brings about a sense of déja vu. True, there are some significant differences between the two episodes; contrary to the cliché, history never truly repeats itself. Yet there are also an alarming number of similarities.

One major difference is that US forces in Vietnam had to fight against well-organized guerrilla forces (the Vietcong) and, as the war continued, against even better trained and organized units of North Vietnam's military. Both the Vietcong and their North Vietnamese masters had a clear-cut political objective—to unify Vietnam under communist rule.

The conflict in Iraq is much less well defined. Adversaries of the US occupation force include the remnant of Baathist supporters of Saddam Hussein's regime, Sunni nationalists (who may have disliked Saddam but fear that Iraq will either fragment or come under Shiite domination), various Shiite militias and death squads, the al Qaeda organization in Iraq, and assorted criminal gangs. All have their own agendas, and those agendas are often bewildering to American military commanders. The conflict in Iraq resembles a Hobbesian struggle of all against all rather than the kind of conventional insurgency the United States encountered in Vietnam. Outright terrorism (attacks on innocent civilians) plays a greater and more prominent role in the Iraq struggle than it did during the Vietnam War, as well.

A second major difference concerns the scope of the mission. At Vietnam's peak, the United States deployed more than 530,000 troops there. The highest number in Iraq is the current figure (160,000), following President Bush's much-touted "surge" of forces to secure Baghdad and Anbar province. The number of casualties in Iraq reflects that smaller-scale commitment. The Vietnam War cost the lives of more than fifty-eight thousand troops in twelve years; the total for four years of the Iraq war is just under thirty-five hundred.¹

Yet another significant difference is that all of the American troops serving in Iraq are volunteers, whereas in Vietnam a large portion were draftees. That difference not only puts moral considerations into an altered context (since all the troops in Iraq presumably knew and accepted the risk of combat when they joined the military), it also changes the political context. The absence of a military draft is almost certainly one reason why there have been few large and angry antiwar demonstrations on America's college campuses, in marked contrast to the Vietnam era. Most American youth are simply not exposed to the dangers of the Iraq war.

Despite such important differences, there are enough similarities in the two conflicts to warrant the sense of déja vu. In a number of troubling respects, both generations of US officials shared a set of dubious assumptions and made the same types of policy errors.

One major assumption in the early stages of the conflicts was that victory would be relatively easy. In the case of Vietnam, the US effort started out with economic aid and the dispatch of a few hundred military advisers. At a May 1962 press conference shortly after a trip to South Vietnam, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara affirmed that he had "seen nothing but progress and hopeful indications of further progress in the future," adding "every quantitative measure we have shows we're winning this war."² A year later, McNamara authorized the Department of Defense to announce that "we have turned the corner in Vietnam." And General Paul Harkins, commander of US forces in Thailand and South Vietnam, claimed that the war could be won "within a year."³ America's military involvement in that country would go on for nearly another decade.

Years later, US officials were still making optimistic pronouncements, despite the falsification of their previous predictions. In July 1967, General William Westmoreland, the commander of US forces in Vietnam, assured McNamara that "North Vietnam is paying a tremendous price with nothing to show for it in return. The war is not a stalemate. We are winning, slowly but steadily."⁴ In November...