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Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam
Perils of Dominance is the first completely new interpretation of how and why the United States went to war in Vietnam. It provides an authoritative challenge to the prevailing explanation that U.S. officials adhered blindly to a Cold War doctrine that loss of Vietnam would cause a "domino effect" leading to communist domination of the area. Gareth Porter presents compelling evidence that U.S. policy decisions on Vietnam from 1954 to mid-1965 were shaped by an overwhelming imbalance of military power favoring the United States over the Soviet Union and China. He demonstrates how the slide into war in Vietnam is relevant to understanding why the United States went to war in Iraq, and why such wars are likely as long as U.S. military power is overwhelmingly dominant in the world.
Challenging conventional wisdom about the origins of the war, Porter argues that the main impetus for military intervention in Vietnam came not from presidents Kennedy and Johnson but from high-ranking national security officials in their administrations who were heavily influenced by U.S. dominance over its Cold War foes. Porter argues that presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson were all strongly opposed to sending combat forces to Vietnam, but that both Kennedy and Johnson were strongly pressured by their national security advisers to undertake military intervention. Porter reveals for the first time that Kennedy attempted to open a diplomatic track for peace negotiations with North Vietnam in 1962 but was frustrated by bureaucratic resistance. Significantly revising the historical account of a major turning point, Porter describes how Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara deliberately misled Johnson in the Gulf of Tonkin crisis, effectively taking the decision to bomb North Vietnam out of the president's hands.
Challenging conventional wisdom about the origins of the war, Porter argues that the main impetus for military intervention in Vietnam came not from presidents Kennedy and Johnson but from high-ranking national security officials in their administrations who were heavily influenced by U.S. dominance over its Cold War foes. Porter argues that presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson were all strongly opposed to sending combat forces to Vietnam, but that both Kennedy and Johnson were strongly pressured by their national security advisers to undertake military intervention. Porter reveals for the first time that Kennedy attempted to open a diplomatic track for peace negotiations with North Vietnam in 1962 but was frustrated by bureaucratic resistance. Significantly revising the historical account of a major turning point, Porter describes how Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara deliberately misled Johnson in the Gulf of Tonkin crisis, effectively taking the decision to bomb North Vietnam out of the president's hands.
421 pages, Hardcover
First published May 14, 2005
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About the author
Gareth Porter
20 books30 followersGareth Porter is an American historian, media commentator and analyst who specialises in U.S. foreign policy & national security issues, particularly those relating to South-East Asia or the Middle East.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 28, 2022
Having studied the Kennedy administration in-depth, I came to the conclusion that he was made one of the main scapegoats of America's failure in Vietnam. He was accused of escalating the conflict beyond return, of paving the way for Lyndon Johnson's mistakes, of being too young, too careless, too hotheaded. However, a closer look at President John F. Kennedy's personality and actions during his presidency paint a strikingly different picture.
In the words of James W. Douglass, JFK was a "turned" Cold Warrior. After vetoing the introduction of American troops at the Bay of Pigs, he resisted the Joint Chiefs' even more intense pressures to bomb and invade Cuba in the October 1962 missile crisis. Then he simply ignored his military and CIA advisers by turning sharply toward peace in his American University address, his Partial Test Ban Treaty with Nikita Khrushchev, and his quest for a dialogue with Fidel Castro. As a result of his actions, the United States and the Soviet Union were on the " brink of peace, " especially on nuclear testing and Berlin. Then came his little known October 1963 decision to withdraw from Vietnam – the next logical step in the increasingly hopeful process that he and Khrushchev had become engaged in.
What is unrecognized about Kennedy's presidency, though, is that he was locked in a struggle with his national security state. That state had higher values than obedience to the orders of a president who wanted peace. The defeat of Communism was number one. As JFK sought an alternative to victory or defeat, he became increasingly isolated in his own government. He had been freed from the narrow Cold War ideology by his improved relationship to his enemy Khrushchev. At the same time he was forced to realize that, in his own administration, he was becoming more and more isolated. His isolation grew as he rejected his military advisers' most creatively destructive proposals on how to win the Cold War.
Contrary to what is widely believed, the President was especially skeptical about wars in Southeast Asia. By the time he became President, the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with Dwight D. Eisenhower's support, had already assumed the burden of somehow "saving" Laos and Vietnam. These same men would now become Kennedy's advisers. Though a Cold Warrior himself, Kennedy was still too critical a thinker not to go ahead and question their views that even a hopeless war was preferable to an accommodation with the enemy. He was inclined by his personal knowledge of the historical background to the conflict to avoid a American military commitment in South Vietnam. But he was also afraid to reject his advisers’ recommendation completely. The result was a compromise on the third major decision in late 1961 that allowed a major American role in the counterinsurgency war by American pilots – but ruled out open combat by American troops. Meanwhile, the rejection of the Geneva Accords and of any political-diplomatic compromise with the North Vietnamese continued to be in force. Kennedy’s efforts to initiate diplomatic contacts with Hanoi were resisted by the national security bureaucracy in the firm belief that South Vietnam was a place where America could and should effectively exert its power.
As spring turned into the summer of 1963, President John F. Kennedy had decided to withdraw the American military and neutralize Vietnam, just as he had done with Laos. It was also easier said than done. By June 1963, Kennedy had been manipulated by forces more powerful than his presidency into the beginning stages of a process that was the opposite of his stated intention. He was succumbing to pressures to replace Diem's government in Vietnam, which had just shown itself to be independent and on the verge of asking the Americans to leave – precisely what Kennedy knew he most needed to facilitate an withdrawal. While aware of the irony, JFK was afraid that Diem was personally incapable of reversing the disastrous course he had been driven towards: Under his brother Nhu's dominant influence, Diem was trying to repress a popular Buddhist uprising, which was thereby bound to turn into a revolution. Diem, Kennedy concluded wrongly, was a hopeless case, and he made the mistake of endorsing his overthrow because he hoped that after the Diem regime's inevitable fall, he would then be able to "put a government in there that will ask us to leave." The backing of the coup against Ngo Dinh Diem was Kennedy's greatest blunder, and he took the blame for it. To call him the main impetus of the American involvement in Vietnam, though, is to give historical facts no justice.
It is worth mentioning that Kennedy's own public pronouncements worked against him. Even as he turned toward a withdrawal from Vietnam, he continued to say publicly that he was opposed to just such a change in policy. Neither of the two most likely Republican presidential candidates, New York governor Nelson Rockefeller or Arizona senator Barry Goldwater, had any tolerance whatsoever for a possible withdrawal from Vietnam. In the context of 1963 presidential Cold War politics, a Vietnam withdrawal was the unthinkable. President John F. Kennedy was not only thinking the unthinkable. He was on the verge of doing it. But he wanted to be able to do it by being reelected president. So he lied to the public about what he was thinking – which later helped turn him into a scapegoat for Vietnam.
PERILS OF DOMINANCE was a satisfying read for me. Gareth Porter has put all my observations, accumulated from various books, into one work to prove that President John F. Kennedy did not drag the United States into the Vietnam War. This book is engagingly written, with well-constructed and -researched narrative. I highly recommend it to all Cold War buffs.
In the words of James W. Douglass, JFK was a "turned" Cold Warrior. After vetoing the introduction of American troops at the Bay of Pigs, he resisted the Joint Chiefs' even more intense pressures to bomb and invade Cuba in the October 1962 missile crisis. Then he simply ignored his military and CIA advisers by turning sharply toward peace in his American University address, his Partial Test Ban Treaty with Nikita Khrushchev, and his quest for a dialogue with Fidel Castro. As a result of his actions, the United States and the Soviet Union were on the " brink of peace, " especially on nuclear testing and Berlin. Then came his little known October 1963 decision to withdraw from Vietnam – the next logical step in the increasingly hopeful process that he and Khrushchev had become engaged in.
What is unrecognized about Kennedy's presidency, though, is that he was locked in a struggle with his national security state. That state had higher values than obedience to the orders of a president who wanted peace. The defeat of Communism was number one. As JFK sought an alternative to victory or defeat, he became increasingly isolated in his own government. He had been freed from the narrow Cold War ideology by his improved relationship to his enemy Khrushchev. At the same time he was forced to realize that, in his own administration, he was becoming more and more isolated. His isolation grew as he rejected his military advisers' most creatively destructive proposals on how to win the Cold War.
Contrary to what is widely believed, the President was especially skeptical about wars in Southeast Asia. By the time he became President, the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with Dwight D. Eisenhower's support, had already assumed the burden of somehow "saving" Laos and Vietnam. These same men would now become Kennedy's advisers. Though a Cold Warrior himself, Kennedy was still too critical a thinker not to go ahead and question their views that even a hopeless war was preferable to an accommodation with the enemy. He was inclined by his personal knowledge of the historical background to the conflict to avoid a American military commitment in South Vietnam. But he was also afraid to reject his advisers’ recommendation completely. The result was a compromise on the third major decision in late 1961 that allowed a major American role in the counterinsurgency war by American pilots – but ruled out open combat by American troops. Meanwhile, the rejection of the Geneva Accords and of any political-diplomatic compromise with the North Vietnamese continued to be in force. Kennedy’s efforts to initiate diplomatic contacts with Hanoi were resisted by the national security bureaucracy in the firm belief that South Vietnam was a place where America could and should effectively exert its power.
As spring turned into the summer of 1963, President John F. Kennedy had decided to withdraw the American military and neutralize Vietnam, just as he had done with Laos. It was also easier said than done. By June 1963, Kennedy had been manipulated by forces more powerful than his presidency into the beginning stages of a process that was the opposite of his stated intention. He was succumbing to pressures to replace Diem's government in Vietnam, which had just shown itself to be independent and on the verge of asking the Americans to leave – precisely what Kennedy knew he most needed to facilitate an withdrawal. While aware of the irony, JFK was afraid that Diem was personally incapable of reversing the disastrous course he had been driven towards: Under his brother Nhu's dominant influence, Diem was trying to repress a popular Buddhist uprising, which was thereby bound to turn into a revolution. Diem, Kennedy concluded wrongly, was a hopeless case, and he made the mistake of endorsing his overthrow because he hoped that after the Diem regime's inevitable fall, he would then be able to "put a government in there that will ask us to leave." The backing of the coup against Ngo Dinh Diem was Kennedy's greatest blunder, and he took the blame for it. To call him the main impetus of the American involvement in Vietnam, though, is to give historical facts no justice.
It is worth mentioning that Kennedy's own public pronouncements worked against him. Even as he turned toward a withdrawal from Vietnam, he continued to say publicly that he was opposed to just such a change in policy. Neither of the two most likely Republican presidential candidates, New York governor Nelson Rockefeller or Arizona senator Barry Goldwater, had any tolerance whatsoever for a possible withdrawal from Vietnam. In the context of 1963 presidential Cold War politics, a Vietnam withdrawal was the unthinkable. President John F. Kennedy was not only thinking the unthinkable. He was on the verge of doing it. But he wanted to be able to do it by being reelected president. So he lied to the public about what he was thinking – which later helped turn him into a scapegoat for Vietnam.
PERILS OF DOMINANCE was a satisfying read for me. Gareth Porter has put all my observations, accumulated from various books, into one work to prove that President John F. Kennedy did not drag the United States into the Vietnam War. This book is engagingly written, with well-constructed and -researched narrative. I highly recommend it to all Cold War buffs.
July 13, 2024
Do you believe the President sits atop the government as an independent judge of what should be done by the executive branch - a final point at which group-think might be turned aside?
Read this book to find out how it really works. The President can easily be a captive of the political system and is not free to act, simply because he is as afraid as anyone else of being blamed if things go wrong. He can be managed by those below him by skillful use, or cover-ups, of essential documents and studies. Words and phrases in reports can be ordered to be changed, an honest report can be rewritten by a superior, meetings can be called off or scheduled to reinforce or diminish the importance of an issue.
This history of the lead-up to full involvement by the United States in the war in Vietnam shows how the national security establishment (JCS, DoD, CIA and State) can be blinded by a particular vision of a situation that, to their thinking, dictates a course of action, in this case, the involvement of U.S. troops in combat in Southeast Asia. Obsessed with the suppression/containment of Communism at a time when the US was unchallenged, no one could see that those opposed to the partition of Vietnam would continue to fight no matter what the United States decided to do. Despite the eagerness of North Vietnam to avoid a U.S. combat role, the possibility of compromise and negotiation was resolutely shut off.
Anyone the least bit interested in international affairs should read this book because it reveals the inner workings of power. It presents, heavily documented with notes, a detailed account of such things as the Tonkin Gulf incident and the domino theory, a useful ploy known in the 1960's not based in reality.
Those interested in American Presidencies will find illumination here. Both Kennedy and LBJ were very much against rushing into the Vietnam conflict, yet both without enthusiasm took the necessary steps to make it happen. The fact that each of them could have stopped the process using their authority, but instead yielded to relentless pressure shows how human they were and reinforces the tragedy of the conflict for the country, the soldiers and the commander in chief.
Read this book to find out how it really works. The President can easily be a captive of the political system and is not free to act, simply because he is as afraid as anyone else of being blamed if things go wrong. He can be managed by those below him by skillful use, or cover-ups, of essential documents and studies. Words and phrases in reports can be ordered to be changed, an honest report can be rewritten by a superior, meetings can be called off or scheduled to reinforce or diminish the importance of an issue.
This history of the lead-up to full involvement by the United States in the war in Vietnam shows how the national security establishment (JCS, DoD, CIA and State) can be blinded by a particular vision of a situation that, to their thinking, dictates a course of action, in this case, the involvement of U.S. troops in combat in Southeast Asia. Obsessed with the suppression/containment of Communism at a time when the US was unchallenged, no one could see that those opposed to the partition of Vietnam would continue to fight no matter what the United States decided to do. Despite the eagerness of North Vietnam to avoid a U.S. combat role, the possibility of compromise and negotiation was resolutely shut off.
Anyone the least bit interested in international affairs should read this book because it reveals the inner workings of power. It presents, heavily documented with notes, a detailed account of such things as the Tonkin Gulf incident and the domino theory, a useful ploy known in the 1960's not based in reality.
Those interested in American Presidencies will find illumination here. Both Kennedy and LBJ were very much against rushing into the Vietnam conflict, yet both without enthusiasm took the necessary steps to make it happen. The fact that each of them could have stopped the process using their authority, but instead yielded to relentless pressure shows how human they were and reinforces the tragedy of the conflict for the country, the soldiers and the commander in chief.
July 18, 2015
This is a great book illustrating the temptations and dangers of possessing overwhelming force. Using Vietnam as an example, this book has pertinent messages for the United States and Israel today. An excessively powerful military can lose wars as well as win them. Well written, this book also documents the reality of foreign policy decision making processes.
December 11, 2018
One of the few books you like to go back and read again.
Want to read
April 5, 2023E183.8 V5 P67 2005 Historical Society Library
January 30, 2024
This was a real eye opener. A must read for anyone interested in U.S. foreign policy.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews