Vietnam: The Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous Military Conflict

by Michael Lind

Michael Lind casts new light on one of the most contentious episodes in American history in this controversial bestseller.

In this groundgreaking reinterpretation of America's most disatrous and controversial war, Michael Lind demolishes enduring myths and put the Vietnam War in its proper context—as part of the global conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. Lind reveals the deep cultural divisions within the United States that made the Cold War consensus so fragile and explains how and why American public support for the war in Indochina declined. Even more stunning is his provacative argument that the United States failed in Vietnam because the military establishment did not adapt to the demands of what before 1968 had been largely a guerrilla war.

In an era when the United States so often finds itself embroiled in prolonged and difficult conflicts, Lind offers a sobering cautionary tale to Ameicans of all political viewpoints.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Military Fiction, American History, War

314 pages, Paperback

First published October 18, 1999

About the author

Currently Policy Director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation in Washington, Michael Lind has been an editor or staff writer for The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and The New Republic and writes frequently for The New York Times and the Financial Times. He is the author of more than a dozen books of history, political journalism, and fiction, including a poetry chapbook, When You Are Someone Else (Aralia Press, 2002), Bluebonnet Girl (Henry Holt and Co. (BYR), 2003), a children’s book in verse, which won an Oppenheimer Toy Prize for children’s literature, and a narrative poem, The Alamo (Replica Books, 1999), which the Los Angeles Times named as one of the best books of the year. His first collection of verse, Parallel Lives, was published by Etruscan Press in 2007.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Controversy over the merits of the Vietnam War seem endless even as we approach the forty year anniversary of the United States’ withdraw from the Indochina Theatre. Indeed, the lack of public support for the war has been very prevalent in the historical literature that followed it. Michael Lind explores new ideas in his work on Vietnam, in which he ultimately defends the decision to send ground troops to fight in America’s most disastrous political conflict. Lind claims that it was “Geopolitics” that brought the United States into South Vietnam to defend the anti-communist regime of Diem. He begins with the 1950 meeting in Moscow between the three faces of Communism: Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Ho Chi Minh. This is where Lind argues that this meeting was the beginning of a conspiracy for communist expansion. While these three were very different, and not trusting of one another, they recognized the need to assist each other in expanding communism throughout Indochina. This effort by the communists regimes inevitably lead to the escalation of the conflict in Vietnam. Lind argues that Vietnam was the “battleground” between the United States and the communist powers lead by the Soviet Union, and that it was a proxy war in a much larger conflict for global dominance between the two super-powers. He claims that while the strategic decision to go to war was right, all the tactical mistakes accompanied with a stream of disinformation back home made the proxy war in Vietnam nearly impossible to win. Biased political regional difficulties back home along with anti-war movements proved extremely problematic for a government trying to keep the public behind the effort to contain the global communist threat. Victory was not the underlying point to the American effort in Vietnam; it was the commitment to any government that opposed a communist takeover. Lind argues that the United State’s credibility was constantly under siege during the Cold War, and that the proxy war in Vietnam was a chance to prove to the world that America was willing to confront that challenge. Lind concludes that the war in Vietnam was a necessary proxy war in the global battle against communism, and while it is ultimately considered a defeat, it was unavoidable in order for the United States to prevent the communist expansion in Indochina and possibly other parts of the World.
In terms of the “communist conspiracy”, Lind contends that the 1950 meeting in Moscow and the North Vietnamese relocation programs are clear indicators that these communist regimes were working together. Lind looks at the Soviets as being the focal point to the collusion between the regimes, and that while Ho Chi Minh was not directly taking orders from Moscow he was receiving aid from China who was receiving supplies from Moscow. Lind constantly refers to the Marxist-Leninist ideology that held the different regimes together, saying that while immediate agendas might have been different, long-term geopolitical goals were glued together under the unity of their communist ideologues. Lind points to this as the prime cause for the United States involvement in Vietnam, he contends that the geopolitical environment of the time would not allow the United States to make any other choice but to engage in combat in South Vietnam. This would lead to several forms of domestic dissent back home. Lind claims that the United States was broken into four ethnic regional political ideologies, of those he says the Northern regions that stem from New England, and the Quaker state of Pennsylvania were where the core of dissidence originates from. Those regional dissidents, along with an anti-war sentiment among the youth to which Lind accuses the Jewish collegiate population as being the bulk of this dissidence, made winning the war fast a priority. However, Lind argues that the method for fighting the war proposed by General Westmorland was flawed from the beginning. The attrition war was counterproductive to winning the actual war, and Lind claims that it was Westmorland’s Army background was part of the problem. Lind contends that a Marine general with knowledge of how to win battles with quick and specialized assaults would have been more productive in establishing an immediate protectorate around key locations in South Vietnam. Expanding the battleground would occur slowly over time with quick tactical wins at the borders of these strategic locations and expansion would not include the whole of South Vietnam. Because the proxy war was lost, the entire venture is picked apart and scrutinized to a degree that other proxy wars (like the Korean War) were not.
Still, it is obvious that Lind’s work (while refreshingly unique compared to his contemporaries) is a piece written by a nationalist polemicist. The credibility of the United States is such a huge part of his argument, but he is extraordinarily vague on what exactly that credibility is; he fails to clearly define why the United States’ credibility was in question if Vietnam was to be left alone. The United States failed to take Cuba, and promote democracy in China and in Greece, yet those losses are not related to the “credibility” of the United States as a super-power. The failed attempt in Cuba did not promote pro-soviet sentiment throughout the world. The “Communist Conspiracy” notion, while interesting and justifiable considering the proximity of the regimes to the Indochina theatre, looks very bleak when considering the big picture. If there was an international communist conspiracy to destroy democracy, then why on earth would Mao Zedong allow Nixon of all people in to China? It would appear counterproductive for a major player in the conspiracy to engage in civil talks with the opponent of your co-conspirator. That is because China and Russia never trusted one another, and there alliance was paper thin. Lind claims that it was the Jewish population that was the synthesis for the anti-war effort among collegiate students. He says “…Although Jews accounted for 2.5 percent of the U.S. population, Jewish men accounted for only 0.46 percent of the war-related deaths in the Vietnam War.” (110), saying that this was a way to get out of fighting by going to college. He mentions those statistics without mentioning the percentage of Jewish men who actually fought in the war. This is a cheap shot against a demographic that is very small, by saying that a minority ditched out of the fight because they only make up a minority of the casualties in the fight is misleading and unethical.
Lind’s argument that the merit of the Vietnam War has been damaged heavily by the dishonesty of Washington prior to the Tet Offensive of 1968 and following one of the most criminal presidencies in this nations’ history is very accurate. There is no doubt that had the Vietnam War ended in a stalemate like the Korean War, that the level of dissidence and hatred of the conflict would be greatly diminished. There are troubling thoughts in this work though; one is that Lind constantly accuses his contemporaries and other historians of the era as just having the wrong idea about how things really were, basically calling them fools on the subject. The other is his comparison of the losses in the war to losses in an auction. Lind summarizes the losses in the conflict as the highest bid that the United States was willing to make. This is a grotesque comparison, it holds no credible value to Lind’s viewpoint as to why the war was actually necessary, and it is merely nationalistic garbage. Still, while the selective use of evidence does show that Lind is not considering the opposition’s argument I very high regards, it is a provocative look at what caused the Vietnam War to escalate. Lind concludes that the Vietnam War was a defeat, not a mistake, and that argument must be considered in order to find closure on America’s most disastrous political and military venture.

[Wenzel Ruhmann · Rating 1 out of 5]

Weak, stale arguments

[Emillybeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

OMG so painful. Do not read! It grossly twists facts and gives half truths in order to manipulate history into a twisted agenda. It was painful in extreme to read.

[Michael Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very conservative point of view on the war in Vietnam. I like it to contrast with other histories and my own research. Lind does an excellent job in presenting his case

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Vietnam war was not a war between a western superpower and a poor communist state on the other side of the world; it was a proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Communist forces that were trying to solidify hold on SE Asia. The book outlines how the war was justified and why it was a necessary struggle for America and the free world. As an added bonus, Lind gives a superb account of how regional politics in America are entrenched in their respective ties to different European societies and how these competing political beliefs have shaped war policy over the past century.

[Lance Cahill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb treatment of the Vietnam War. The title hides the nuance of the author's article but the care the author takes in building his argument is great. One of the rare books which has the ability to truly alter your thinking on a matter.

[Matt English · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book!!! Lind gives thorough and persuasive arguments that this war, though poorly executed tactically, was an essential strategic battle in the overall "Cold War" victory.

[Jane Griffiths · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very interesting historical analysis of the Vietnam war from what might be called a neocon perspective - if you think not opposing all America's wars because they are America's makes you a neocon. To Lind the US adventures in Vietnam were not, or not especially, about anti-communism, but were especially about US credibility, not just in the region but in the wider world. He seems to say that, in terms of a military campaign, the job should have been done properly: "Kennedy and Johnson should not have allowed an unrealistic fear of Chinese intervention to prevent them from invading North Vietnam, or at least cutting it off from its Chinese and Soviet sponsors by measures such as mining North Vietnamese ports." After all, he says, the threat of Chinese invasion was real at the time. It had happened in Korea not that long before. A Chinese Party Central Committee document of 1965 declared that the top priority for the Chinese government was supporting North Vietnam against the United States." Therefore, Lind concludes, "the argument that Johnson could have brought the war to a quick end by invading North Vietnam has been completely discredited". Slightly contradictory, no?

Lind even tries to rehabilitate the reputation of LBJ by saying he was undermined by RFK and his associates, who went as far as to meet the KGB (this apparently was revealed in Soviet archives) to indicate to them that RFK was at one with JFK, unlike LBJ, and would be the USSR's friend if he became President.

Lind explains the change in the Democratic Party (away from interventionism and towards isolationism) by the core constituencies of the party ceasing to be much Southern or Catholic and becoming Greater New England Protestant, Jewish, and black. He makes comparisons, again and again, for example to the assassination of President Park of South Korea in 1979, which he says would have put a stop to then-active attempts at Korean reunification if it had happened in 1972. But it didn't, so it didn't. He especially compares, again and again, the situation facing LBJ in 1965-6 with that facing President Clinton in Yugoslavia in 1999. It's fair, but as a device gets a bit tedious after a while.

Far from stating that the US bombing of Cambodia, always intended to disrupt the passage of materiel through Cambodia from Sihanoukville, and the effective occupation of the ports of eastern Cambodia by the North Vietnamese, Lind says "the banning by the US Congress of further US air support for the Lon Nol regime ensured victory for Pol Pot and his followers." That, and Sihanouk immediately declaring for the Khmer Rouge and urging all Cambodians to join them. Also, "the Khmer Rouge owed their victory in to the North Vietnamese military." He rejects the position of Cambodia scholars such as Ben Kiernan, namely that the US bombing of Cambodia somehow drove the Cambodian peasantry collectively insane and spawned the Khmer Rouge. He goes as far as to argue that Sihanouk, by allowing the passage of weapons and materiel through Cambodia to the North Vietnamese from the port of Sihanoukville "became a co-combatant" in the Vietnam War in the mid-60s.

"The only two presidents to have waged major wars in defiance of the US Constitution have been Harry S. Truman (in Korea) and Bill Clinton (Kosovo).

On the Clinton presidency's foreign policy and adventures, not a glorious episode in anyone's estimation, he goes further too. President Clinton's publicly ruling out the use of ground troops in Serbia to prevent ethnic cleansing in Kosovo was "the single greatest act of incompetence ever committed by an American commander-in-chief." He's probably right about that, though it all came right in the end (sort of). As he says: "fortunately; the capitulation of Serbia averted what might have been a disaster for the United States."

For some reason he quotes Churchill on Dunkirk "We must be careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory." He uses this quote to introduce a section on history's verdict on Vietnam. Whatever, the old boy's quotes certainly have stood the test of time.

"The Vietnam War was neither a mistake nor a betrayal nor a crime. It was a military defeat." I now agree with him that it was not a mistake. But disastrous mistakes were made in the execution of it, and also of course in its presentation.

A non-conventional perspective on the war, and a highly commendable contribution to the history of that conflict, still very much in living memory.

[Julio The Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

"And Viet Nam, Viet Nam, Viet Nam, we've all been there."---Michael Herr, DISPATCHES, last line

This opus by Michael Lind is important for one reason; it demonstrates perfectly how and why liberals justify U.S. foreign intervention, or wars as they used to be known, at times, as opposed to conservatives, who favor war all the time. Lind offers an intriguing yet ultimately false argument: The United States was right to send troops to Viet Nam in 1965 and Begin bombing North Viet Nam under Lyndon Johnson since South Viet Nam was on the verge of being split in half by the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. This would have spelled disaster for the U.S. in encouraging other Marxist guerrilla movements to do the same, thus tilting the Cold War in favor of the Soviet Union. How does Lind know this? Flash forward to 1975, after the fall of Saigon, and you see Marxists take power from Ethiopia and Angola, and later try to seize power in Nicaragua and El Salvador. In other words, the American "domino theory was correct". But then Lind pulls off a role reversal. The U.S. was also right to exit from Viet Nam in 1972, due to the war tearing the country apart. (Notice how Lind makes no mention of the Viet Nam War tearing Viet Nam Apart.) Losing in Viet Nam was a small price to pay for domestic tranquility. What is wrong with this view, and the reason it is so dangerous, is that Lind assumes, without proof, that Marxist insurgencies after 1975 were caused by the triumph of the Communists in Viet Nam. They weren't. The Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the MPLA in Angola, and other guerrilla groups had been fighting colonialism and/or U.S.-backed dictatorships since the early Sixties. They did not need the Viet Cong flag flying over Ho Chi Minh City to win. On the flip side, the anti-war movement in the U.S. had pretty much died out by 1972---ask those of us who watched Nixon's re-nomination in Miami that year. Domestic tranquility was not in peril. This book should be read, but only as a caveat on how liberal patriots, "with the best of intentions" can justify the unjustifiable;58,000 American deaths and 3 million Indochinese.

[Andrew Tollemache · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very compelling revisionist take on the war in Vietnam that goes to great lengths to upend the popular consensus about Vietnam that has emerged in the last 30 years: it was an unnecessary war that the US stumbled into for reasons of imperialistic hubris and incompetence. Lind also spends a great deal of time dissecting some of the lesser debated points since the Fall of Saigon in 1975 like, Kennedy's planned pull out, US role in rise of Khmer Rouge, Hi Chi Minh as nationalist, and the handcuffed US military.
Lind is on his strongest ground when taking down the lesser debated points. On the larger point of the war being vital and an imperative fight I am less convinced. Lind frames the war as one of US reliability and legitimacy. If we did not fully depend our South Vietnamese clients, what would our friends in Japan and Western Europe think about our vows to defend them. While i get his point that if this was where the Soviets and Chinese ended up testing US mettle than we had to put up a fight. Vietnam war was not important cuz Vietnam is important, the war was important because that is where fate ended up staging the vital war....meh. On other hand it is hard to argue the US word and reliability card when all our major allies saw the war as wating resources and global credibility on war whose resources were being diverted away from our treaty oblications. On the flip side it appeared that the USSR and Chinese supported the North Vietnamese not because it was their preference, but if the US was going to stake its rep in South Vietnam than so be it.
Lind's does much better on the smaller points, but in the end all his arguments, especially the most revisionist rely upon taking a heads on approach on orthodoxy and then finding 1 o2 quotes from obscure Chinese or Vietnamese leaders years and decades later to refute. WEAK. Strong claims need strong proof and Lind is too eager to go after the debates.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lind offers a history of the war which is unique in that he argues the war was not a moral catastrophe or a strategic error, but rather a justified and winnable war that we lost on account of tactical mistakes early on (chiefly by Gen. Westmoreland).

Lind's strongest argument runs like so: we all just know that the Vietnam War was a terrible crime, and a fiasco, and a blunder, but at the same time, we suppose that the Korean War was justified. Yet, in both cases, a communist force based in the Northern part of a formerly unified nation, invades or infiltrates the southern, non-communist part, with the support of China and the USSR. The aim of the United States in intervening in both places was plain: US leaders wanted to prevent a decline in US influence in Asia and the concomitant increase communist power.

Pace Lind's insistent but thinly argued claim that every tactic we undertook was justified, the bombing Laos and Cambodia was a dark episode. And whatever Lind says, it does recall the immolation of innocent people in Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. It plainly does. Moreover, in a proxy war aimed from 1968-1975 solely at salvaging American credibility, rather less was at stake, even if we regard that credibility as having been vital throughout the Cold War.

The value of this book is precisely that it challenges the now official history of the war, in which American protesters are the only heroes, and represented the only just cause in the whole mess. This has hardened into a seldom disputed orthodoxy, which is clearly unfair to Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, and many others.

[Julie Huskey · Rating 3 out of 5]

(I was required to read and review this for a course on the Cold War.)

Anglophones have thousands of choices when it comes to the Vietnam War; this one stands out primarily for its snarkiness. Lind also tends to gloss over complex situations.

What did the U.S. want to accomplish by becoming involved, and when it looked like that wasn't going to happen, what was the next best goal? Leaving Vietnam after making an honest effort, as Lind argues? Southeast Asia makes me wonder if, sometimes, there are no good options.

[Chandler Jameson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought it was very interesting and honestly refreshing. Being opposed to the Vietnam War seems to be the “default” position for most people in the US. It was nice to read something different for a change.

That being said, his critique of what he calls the Praetorian Argument is rather flawed and I don’t think he actually proves his point there.

One thing I find funny though is all of the people on here that are saying that he’s some kind of far right pundit. Which is just not the case if you look at his other works. Lol.

[JoséMaría BlancoWhite · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a dense but revealing book. It called my attention while searching for a different perspective to the square-minded and whacky PC stories. The author gives us an honest and detailed explanation of the background of Vietnam. He convincingly lets us see the whole picture of what was involved in the decision-making behind Vietnam at the time. It's certainly about time now -without all the sound and fury of yesteryear- to help people get rid of their prejudices and ignorance.

This book is not a military account of the war, though. But it's the absolutely necessary companion -after reading the military facts- for a quiet meditation and re-evaluation. There are many great arguments in this book that can quench your thirst for wisdom, as in: "These three regions -Vietnam, Korea, Indochina- were not contested because they were important. THEY WERE IMPORTANT BECAUSE THEY WERE CONTESTED."

Most revealing and convincing to me were the quotations from letters by the communists leaders Stalin, Ribbentrop (foreign minister for the Nazis) and Mao mocking America's military capabilities and political resolve towards the war. These are worth the whole book, and a thousand books. Everyone in America should read pages 44 to 46 before being given the right to vote, seriously.

Thus dixit Stalin:

"They are fighting little Korea, and already people are weeping in the USA. What will happen if they start a large-scale war? Then, perhaps, everyone will weep." Mao's and Ribbentrop's words are of the same caliber. It all comes down to the simple conclusion that America's war in Vietnam was a proxy war, a game of intellects, a poker game with the USSR and China.

Having the choice of playing poker with someone who hates you and would like to see you dead, or dueling with him, I would pick the first option, if only because I care more about my life than my money.

NB. I can't help remembering my little conversation with this visiting Chinese female teacher. She was emphatically arguing that America had invaded Korea first and that caused China to help their poor Asian "compadres". Nice. The US had sponsored her to come here and teach. This is what I call a willing spy. But we have to be so nice and understanding with foreigners, right? Candid, also? Stupid, also? On the other hand, I think, Americans are so different from other peoples. You see, this Chinese lady believes everything her government taught her, as a dogma of faith, she's a willing serf. But Americans don't submit. On the contrary, if it's the government who says it then it must surely be contended with.

Another particularity -and I may be digressing too much- is that this welcoming trait (though hypocritical it may be) of Americans towards immigrants is restricted to a certain kind of immigrants. To be brief, teachers, scientists, pseudo-intellectuals are more welcome, overall, than typically poor families from Central/South America. But this is the real human-stuff that America is made of. Remember what Ms Liberty with her torch says? Instead, America is welcoming people who hate her and try to show her how bad she is, but is closing doors to her real constituency: the decent fellows who want to work, pay taxes, mind their own businesses and die.

[Ginny Truong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lind’s book offers a whole new perspective about the war. He was very clear with his Revisionist positions on the Vietnam war. The preface gave an overview his arguments, which were all opposite to Young’s. While Young made sure her brief description of the war shed a light on the uselessness and meaninglessness of the Indochina battlefield entry of the U.S, Lind were convinced it was necessary. He “examined the war in light of the Cold War” from a perspective more “sympathetic to the American Cold War policymakers.”1 He argued that the U.S entered the Vietnam war because of geopolitics and exited because of domestic politics.2 These are very typical of the revisionist school of interpretation.

To support his arguments of the essentiality of the war, Lind gave an account of Ho’s brutal totalitarian-communist regime. Ho wanted to model his newly born country on those of Stalin, Lenin and Mao, to the extent that every detail “would be borrowed from the Soviet Union or Mao’s imitation fo Soviet examples.”3 Ho’s regime atrocities, which was apparent during mid-1950 and in Cambodia in 1970s, were not the results of his own cruelty and ambitions. Those were to serve the higher purpose of the political religion of Marxism-Leninism.4



In short, Lind believed North Vietnam, contrary to the orthodox beliefs, were not independent. In fact, the whole war was a concrete proof that Vietnam was an indispensable and active part of the Soviet’s followers outside of Eastern Europe. If the U.S let North Vietnam won in Indochina, they would lose in the global Communist fight. The domino theory was true in his perspective.

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply one of the most thought provoking historical analyses I have ever read.

A year or so ago, I was hiking with my daughter and we began to discuss the Vietnam War. We talked about how many historians have belittled the Domino Theory and how they have strongly supported the idea that the Vietnam War was pointless at best. The conversation got me to thinking that the accepted historical interpretation of the war did not really square with my sense of the events and subsequent developments. I realized that I needed to revisit the war in some depth to clarify my own thinking on it.

Last fall I listened to Peter Robinson's superb podcast Uncommon Knowledge when he interviewed Michael Lind regarding this book, and I decided I had to read it.

My conclusions after this read. The Vietnam War was not handled well by political or military leaders and a tragedy resulted. However, it was unavoidable and likely necessary for America during the Cold War. It was lost because it lost public support, but even so the region is probably more stable today because of the war. Leftist journalists and historians have done a great disservice to our nation and our Vietnam veterans through biased, and even mendacious, historical analysis.

Amazing book, but not without flaws. There were occasional assertions made without strong supporting evidence.

[Fred R · Rating 4 out of 5]

I share much of Lind's politics, and many of his prejudices, and so I had a great time.
I was particularly impressed by his discussion of the influence of ethno-regionalism on american politics (anyone who cites Fischer automatically gets a lot of points from me), although his tendency to attack only extreme positions has led him, I think, into an interpretive error. The dominant foreign policy position of greater New England is not "isolationism," which to them smells of Lindbergh and America First, but liberal internationalism, what Walter Russell Mead called "Wilsonian-ism." But I was not surprised to see Nixon's charge that Jews were underrepresented among American casualties in Vietnam vindicated.
Lind's recommendation that our Armed forces put aside its focus on high-tech gadgetry and study counter-insurgency ("pacification") looks quite prescient, and I would not be shocked if the predictions he makes under the doctrine of "maximal realism" are similarly borne out by events (such as conflict between U.S. and China).

[Billy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Michael Lind disagrees with Logevall and Kaiser. Vietnam was a “necessary war.” Ho Chi Minh was a “real” communist, not a nationalist with communist leanings. The US needed to fight in Vietnam to bolster its reputation, to show that it could fight anywhere in the world agsint communism. Yet, the US was only willing to spend so much in lives and/or capital. That is why military victory was never possible. During the Cold War, the conflict in Vietnam was inevitable, and LBJ did a commendable job in leading the nation during this necessary war. Escalation was futile because, according to Lind’s examination of Chinese archives, any attempt to block soviet arms flowing into the country would have simply been redirected through China. The war was a success, not a failure.

[Renan Critelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Este livro me chamou a atenção pois aparentemente oferecia algumas explicações para algumas contradições nas narrativas mais comuns sobre a guerra.
Certas partes do livro são muito boas, como a que refuta parte dos argumentos de que a guerra foi perdida pois o governo dos EUA não "deixou os militares livres para fazerem seu serviço". O envolvimento da China e da URSS também é bem demonstrado.
Embora interessante, o livro é muito irregular. O problema é que o autor fala com muita certeza sobre coisas muito complexas, não-evidentes, dependentes de muitas variáveis. É claro que ele sempre tenta argumentar, mas não me convenceu.
Em mais da metade do conteúdo do livro, fica parecendo que o autor quer torcer os fatos para que se encaixem em sua visão. E isto deixa um gosto amargo ao final.

[Michael Chornesky · Rating 1 out of 5]

Racist, paternalistic, and antisemitic to its core, this book simultaneously endows the United States with all the power to decide the Vietnam War through its policy and none of the responsibility for its actions there out of a twisted understanding of how Cold War geopolitics actually worked.

Has not earned much of the focus given it by liberal critics of the war. Better dismissed than engaged on its own problematic and colored terms.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

A reinterpretation of what's known about processes and government during The Vietnam Conflict. The book is well written and researched, leans to a right-wing hegemonic viewpoint, and draws some good conclusions as well as many more fatally flawed conclusions. Good reading, and taken with a grain of salt and well-developed skepticism might be effective in understanding the thinking of the Soviets and Mao. Much of it is rubbish, but there are good things also.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 1/2 would be a bit more accurate, but I'll him 4 for his solid argument that 'Johnson micro-managing the war,' and 'if we had only bombed more, done more sooner,' etc. don't hold up. There is not a great deal of new stuff here but a solid interpretation of what we know.

[Joel Duran]

i like it its really intresting (:

[David Bolton · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a field where partisan authors are the norm this is a very welcome balanced examination of the strategic drivers for the US involvement in the Vietnam conflict.