The Myth of Inevitable U.S. Defeat in Vietnam (review)

Newcomers to the field of Vietnam War studies might be forgiven if they conclude that the American defeat there was inevitable. Many books, especially popular histories, cite Vietnam's weather and harsh terrain, the unquenchable will of the Viet Cong guerrillas, and the "illegitimacy" of the American-backed regime in Saigon. These are, of course, caricatures of reality, but they have nonetheless become deeply rooted in the American consciousness.

C. Dale Walton's book seeks to show that America's loss stemmed not from inevitability, but rather from poor planning and execution, and he largely succeeds. The editor's preface breathlessly claims the work to be "a full-frontal assault upon mainstream scholarly and popular views" on the Vietnam War, and while this may be going too far, it is true that Walton gathers between two covers the most debatable strategic decisions made during the war, discusses each one in detail, and proposes alternatives.

The book is divided into seven chapters and a conclusion, each one discussing key aspects of the war's conduct—from the initial decision to intervene through the Nixon administration's negotiated peace accords. In between, Walton examines several key issues, most importantly the U.S. military's ground strategy, the use of airpower, the decision to allow the enemy sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia (and North Vietnam itself), and the threat of Chinese intervention.

Actually, most of these points of contention are standard fare in academic circles. Debate over the wisdom of the search and destroy strategy, the possibility of Chinese intervention, the use of airpower, enemy sanctuaries, and Washington's abandonment of South Vietnam have all been addressed over the years in various books and articles, and most scholars agree that successive American administrations handled things badly in Vietnam. But most of this analysis has been disjointed, argues Walton, and the result is that "The Vietnam conflict has consistently been the most strategically misappraised of all U.S. conflicts" (p. 151). Indeed, the real value of Walton's book is that it takes all these aspects of the war, shines them through a single strategic prism, and offers meaningful conclusions.

In essence, Walton argues that America's aims in Vietnam could have been achieved if only military and political decision makers had been wiser in their strategic execution. Because of America's great strength, writes Walton, it "was free to enter combat at the time and in the manner of its choosing: it could opt to operate (or not to operate) in Laos, Cambodia, and/or North Vietnam, construct its strategic air campaign according to its own preferences, and fight the ground war in any number of ways. Yet Washington elected for a route that neutralized most of its advantages and surrendered the momentum of the war's conduct to its opponents" (p. 3).

In the end, Walton's argument is unprovable. Perhaps the United States could have used a different strategy to force a better outcome, and perhaps not. However, given what we have seen during the small wars over the years since Vietnam, it seems clear that using military force to send a message—as America did in Vietnam—rarely works. Hanoi did not simply give in when faced with U.S. half measures, and subsequent conflicts in Grenada, Panama, Bosnia, Kosovo, and now Iraq show clearly that real force focused on a specific outcome is often necessary. Walton's book shows us that, in this respect at least, Vietnam was really not such an anomaly after all.