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The Army and Vietnam
Many senior army officials still claim that if they had been given enough soldiers and weapons, the United States could have won the war in Vietnam. In this probing analysis of U.S. military policy in Vietnam, career army officer and strategist Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., argues that precisely because of this mindset the war was lost before it was fought. The army assumed that it could transplant to Indochina the operational methods that had been successful in the European battle theaters of World War II, an approach that proved ill-suited to the way the Vietnamese Communist forces fought. Theirs was a war of insurgency, and counterinsurgency, Krepinevich contends, requires light infantry formations, firepower restraint, and the resolution of political and social problems within the nation. To the very end, top military commanders refused to recognize this. Krepinevich documents the deep division not only between the American military and civilian leaders over the very nature of the war, but also within the U.S. Army itself. Through extensive research in declassified material and interviews with officers and men with battlefield experience, he shows that those engaged in the combat understood early on that they were involved in a different kind of conflict. Their reports and urgings were discounted by the generals, who pressed on with a conventional war that brought devastation but little success. A thorough analysis of the U.S. Army's role in the Vietnam War, The Army and Vietnam demonstrates with chilling persuasiveness the ways in which the army was unprepared to fight—lessons applicable to today's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
318 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1986
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December 11, 2021
When American ground forces were sent to South Vietnam in substantial numbers in 1962, and when combat forces were introduced in 1965, the official rationale for their deployment was to buy time so that the Saigon government could take the steps and make the reforms needed to withstand the Communist invasion from the north. The (incorrect) assumption was that a second South Korea had to be built out of South Vietnam. It had to become a state able to defend itself against Communist insurgency while relying on American/ NATO forces in case of overt aggression from North Vietnam and/ or China.
According to Andrew Krepinevich, if viewed from the American government's perspective, the effectiveness of American advisory and military operations in South Vietnam could be measured through the extent of their success in buying time for Saigon with minimal human and material costs (a necessary condition in a protracted war) and in building South Vietnam's strength enough for it to cope with the Hanoi guerrillas without American combat troops. A second measure of the effectiveness of American operations was the extent to which they contributed to South Vietnam's victory over the Communist insurgents because when they weakened the insurgents, they increased the strength of the Saigon government, allowing it to resume responsibility for its internal defense.
The Army ended up failing on both counts. It expended human resources at a high rate and material resources in a profligate manner as part of its war of attrition, which neither achieved a quick victory nor maintained support for a continued American involvement in Vietnam on the home front. The Army's conduct of the war was a failure because it never realized, at the high level of command, that insurgency warfare required a change in Army strategy. The strategy of attrition was an expensive way to buy time for South Vietnam, and its reliance on large amounts of firepower did not reduce American casualties and wear out the enemy in the long term.
As Krepinevich explains, to be successful in the previous wars the United States had fought, the Army had compromised its effectiveness in combating insurgency operations at anything approaching a tolerable cost. It focused on fighting a war of attrition instead of denying the enemy access to the Vietnamese population, on whose support the guerrillas depended. If the Army had done so, it would have dealt the insurgent forces a crippling blow at a low enough cost to allow a continued American presence in Vietnam in case of a large-scale invasion by the Communists. In attempting to kill as many Communists as possible, the Army alienated the most important element in any counterinsurgency strategy – the people. "A strategy of attrition calling for the intentional creation of refugees, defoliation and crop destruction, and a higher priority for body counts than for population security sabotaged progress in the campaign against the insurgents and failed to serve the objectives of American policy," argues Krepinevich.
That is why, three years after the deployment of American combat troops and six years after the first large-scale commitment of American advisers, President Lyndon B. Johnson began planning for their withdrawal despite the American military leaders' confession that not only had the internal threat to South Vietnam's security not diminished, but also the external threat had increased. All the Communists had to do was be patient, and the victory would eventually be theirs. From that point on, questions of American military "strategy" dealt with how best to extract American troops from South Vietnam, not how they might achieve anything resembling victory there.
Of course, the bitter experiences of the lower echelons of the Army in Vietnam taught them some lessons, and they attempted to free themselves from the narrow, inadequate strategy insisted on by the top-ranking military officials. The Army also revolted against its leaders' forced optimism, and after the introduction of combat troops in 1965, it gradually acknowledged, with some prompting from civilian advisers, the need for more focus on pacification efforts and contributed 6,000 men to work on improving the security of the common people. The national police was also upgraded, and as the time went on, the bulk of resources devoted to the war effort shifted somewhat toward counter-insurgency and away from the unsuitable conventional military operations.
Nevertheless, compared to the universal situation in Vietnam, such examples of improvement were for the most part insignificant, late, and brief, and did not offer much solace. Much of the learning occurred only among the low echelons of the Army – junior staff, advisers, and officers – or among those considered out of the "mainstream" of Army operations. Second, counter-insurgency were never prioritized nearly as much as conventional military operations – the low-level commitment to combating insurgency did not expand to include significant numbers of main-force Army units. Third, the Army made no efforts to memorize what the war had taught it. "[R]ather, it expunged the experience from the service's consciousness," writes Krepinevich. Furthermore, those who saw who achieved promotions most often were the officers who served in "mainstream" positions, such as battalion commanders and main-force-unit staff officers, and whose experience in classical counter-insurgency operations was minimal. The Americans in Vietnam, long frustrated by the ineptitude of the ARVN and by the fact that ineptitude guaranteed career advancement, had come up with a slogan to describe the ARVN promotion system: “Fuck up and move up.” What they did not realize is that the slogan had come to apply to their own Army as well.
All of the aforementioned demonstrates that the technologically superior Army's failure to win a war against bands of Communist guerrillas resulted from the fact that the changes that did occur in the Army were not big enough to make a significant impact on the Army or its general approach to the Vietnam conflict, implemented at a time when it was already late to achieve decisive positive results, and retained for an overly short period in the service to have an impact on preparations for future wars against insurgency movements.
THE ARMY AND VIETNAM is a truly impressive study. Andrew Krepinevich has done an extraordinary job explaining why the American Army was outsmarted by the Communists. The book is well-argumented and easy to grasp even for those relatively unversed in military history.
According to Andrew Krepinevich, if viewed from the American government's perspective, the effectiveness of American advisory and military operations in South Vietnam could be measured through the extent of their success in buying time for Saigon with minimal human and material costs (a necessary condition in a protracted war) and in building South Vietnam's strength enough for it to cope with the Hanoi guerrillas without American combat troops. A second measure of the effectiveness of American operations was the extent to which they contributed to South Vietnam's victory over the Communist insurgents because when they weakened the insurgents, they increased the strength of the Saigon government, allowing it to resume responsibility for its internal defense.
The Army ended up failing on both counts. It expended human resources at a high rate and material resources in a profligate manner as part of its war of attrition, which neither achieved a quick victory nor maintained support for a continued American involvement in Vietnam on the home front. The Army's conduct of the war was a failure because it never realized, at the high level of command, that insurgency warfare required a change in Army strategy. The strategy of attrition was an expensive way to buy time for South Vietnam, and its reliance on large amounts of firepower did not reduce American casualties and wear out the enemy in the long term.
As Krepinevich explains, to be successful in the previous wars the United States had fought, the Army had compromised its effectiveness in combating insurgency operations at anything approaching a tolerable cost. It focused on fighting a war of attrition instead of denying the enemy access to the Vietnamese population, on whose support the guerrillas depended. If the Army had done so, it would have dealt the insurgent forces a crippling blow at a low enough cost to allow a continued American presence in Vietnam in case of a large-scale invasion by the Communists. In attempting to kill as many Communists as possible, the Army alienated the most important element in any counterinsurgency strategy – the people. "A strategy of attrition calling for the intentional creation of refugees, defoliation and crop destruction, and a higher priority for body counts than for population security sabotaged progress in the campaign against the insurgents and failed to serve the objectives of American policy," argues Krepinevich.
That is why, three years after the deployment of American combat troops and six years after the first large-scale commitment of American advisers, President Lyndon B. Johnson began planning for their withdrawal despite the American military leaders' confession that not only had the internal threat to South Vietnam's security not diminished, but also the external threat had increased. All the Communists had to do was be patient, and the victory would eventually be theirs. From that point on, questions of American military "strategy" dealt with how best to extract American troops from South Vietnam, not how they might achieve anything resembling victory there.
Of course, the bitter experiences of the lower echelons of the Army in Vietnam taught them some lessons, and they attempted to free themselves from the narrow, inadequate strategy insisted on by the top-ranking military officials. The Army also revolted against its leaders' forced optimism, and after the introduction of combat troops in 1965, it gradually acknowledged, with some prompting from civilian advisers, the need for more focus on pacification efforts and contributed 6,000 men to work on improving the security of the common people. The national police was also upgraded, and as the time went on, the bulk of resources devoted to the war effort shifted somewhat toward counter-insurgency and away from the unsuitable conventional military operations.
Nevertheless, compared to the universal situation in Vietnam, such examples of improvement were for the most part insignificant, late, and brief, and did not offer much solace. Much of the learning occurred only among the low echelons of the Army – junior staff, advisers, and officers – or among those considered out of the "mainstream" of Army operations. Second, counter-insurgency were never prioritized nearly as much as conventional military operations – the low-level commitment to combating insurgency did not expand to include significant numbers of main-force Army units. Third, the Army made no efforts to memorize what the war had taught it. "[R]ather, it expunged the experience from the service's consciousness," writes Krepinevich. Furthermore, those who saw who achieved promotions most often were the officers who served in "mainstream" positions, such as battalion commanders and main-force-unit staff officers, and whose experience in classical counter-insurgency operations was minimal. The Americans in Vietnam, long frustrated by the ineptitude of the ARVN and by the fact that ineptitude guaranteed career advancement, had come up with a slogan to describe the ARVN promotion system: “Fuck up and move up.” What they did not realize is that the slogan had come to apply to their own Army as well.
All of the aforementioned demonstrates that the technologically superior Army's failure to win a war against bands of Communist guerrillas resulted from the fact that the changes that did occur in the Army were not big enough to make a significant impact on the Army or its general approach to the Vietnam conflict, implemented at a time when it was already late to achieve decisive positive results, and retained for an overly short period in the service to have an impact on preparations for future wars against insurgency movements.
THE ARMY AND VIETNAM is a truly impressive study. Andrew Krepinevich has done an extraordinary job explaining why the American Army was outsmarted by the Communists. The book is well-argumented and easy to grasp even for those relatively unversed in military history.
December 28, 2021
This book validates a lot of oral history I heard from veterans of the Vietnam War, including Korean soldiers who served in Vietnam. Andrew Krepinevich makes a very compelling, if unsurprising argument that the Army followed a doctrine and strategy in Vietnam that was doomed to failure. The Army was throwing literally tons of firepower at an enemy, the Viet Cong and NVA, both of which rarely engaged the Army or Marines in company or battalion-sized battles, precisely because they knew that the Army could bring to bear tremendous amounts of artillery and air power as needed. For this reason, it was the common experience of the US soldier in Vietnam to almost never see an enemy soldier. Like Washington's Army, the VC and NVA knew that all they had to do to win was to survive, so they avoided battle in most cases. And yet Westmoreland persisted in his strategy of "search and destroy", which yielded fewer and fewer results, but radically increased the number of civilians killed as the years wore on.
Having just listened to a lecture by Thomas Ricks about how George Marshall managed his general officer corps in WW2, I couldn't help thinking that if Marshall had been Army Chief of Staff in 1965, Westmoreland would have been fired in less than six months. The institutionalized lying that became the standard in Vietnam still haunts the Army, and it was done to demonstrate that "progress" was being made. Marshall was no fool, and would have fired any general who tried to cook the books, and also any general who made big promises and then failed to deliver.
There is a key discussion the author fails to address: it is probably true that the Army was forced into a war which, frankly, it had no business fighting, and this outcome was both a military and a political failure. Vietnam was simply not a war that the US was likely to win, no matter the strategy, in my opinion, so it was a political failure to commit the US Armed Forces to such a war. The British like to point to their successful anti-insurgent war in Malaysia as a template for what might have worked in Vietnam, but the situation there was very different than Vietnam, and also, Vietnam was very different from the US experience in Korea, another war sometimes used as a comparison. The real military failure dates to the Kennedy Administration, when the JCS should have told the president, "Sir, we are not constituted or prepared to fight a counter-insurgency war, and we don't think we should get into this". Harold Johnson, the Army Chief of Staff, nearly offered to resign over the commitment of combat troops to Vietnam, but he didn't, and so the Army went to Vietnam, and the results of that are well known.
The real question about Vietnam is, was it a strategic requirement for the US to be involved there? And even if the answer to that question is yes (which I doubt), was it reasonably likely that the US could win a war in Vietnam, if so, what would victory look like? In Korea, the answer to the first question was, maybe, but the answer to the second question was definitely yes, and victory looked like a restoration of the status quo ante on a peninsula where the flanks of US/South Korean Armies were guarded by the sea. The key factor in Vietnam that very few people in the US Army or US Government understood, was that the VC were a grass roots insurgency, not an invasion force sponsored by North Vietnam, as Westmoreland insisted. Enormous resources were spent by the US on "isolating" the South from "infiltration" from the North, when in fact, almost all of the personnel, and 85% of the material for VC operations were recruited/obtained in the South. By contrast, in Korea, there was never any equivalent to the VC in South Korea. It is really hard to understand how so many really bright people could have gotten the Vietnam decisions so badly wrong.
A key problem which plagued America's effort in Vietnam, from both a political and a military standpoint was the corruption of the South's government and Army (ARVN). The government was not responsive to the people, but rather to the clique's that were well-connected to the ruling elites, and this directly aided the VC recruit in the South. Unlike in Korea, the US Commander in Vietnam did not command the ARVN units, and therefore he could not give orders to the ARVN divisions, or relieve ineffective ARVN commanders, of which there were many. As a result of this lack of "unity of command" to use an Army phrase, Westmoreland relegated ARVN units to secondary tasks, and rarely used them alongside US forces in important missions, which had the secondary effect of demoralizing the ARVN units. By contrast, in Korea General Van Fleet worked tirelessly to improve the quality and equipment of the South Korean (ROK) Army, and he used the ROK Divisions as combat units equivalent to US Divisions, and just as importantly, Van Fleet had genuine respect for the ROK Army and its leaders, and he had an extremely close working relationship with the president of Korea. None of this was true of Westmoreland, who on more than one occasion expressed casual racist disdain for "orientals". Someone once asked Van Fleet why he worked so hard to equip and train the ROK Army, and his answer was, "Do you really think the US is going to keep eight divisions in Korea forever? The ROKs are going to be running things when we leave". Westmoreland had apparently never seriously considered what would happen when the US left Vietnam.
The author's main contention is that if the US had adopted counter-insurgency tactics similar to the Marine's CAPS program, the war could have been won. I disagree for several reasons:
First, if one follows the math, the number of troops required for successful country-wide counter-insurgency operations would have exceeded the highest number of combat troops deployed to Vietnam in about 1968. Notice I specify "combat troops" not all troops.
Second, even if the US deployed 100,000 counter-insurgency troops, properly trained (a big "if), what would have happened after 2-3 years when all the major population centers were now rid of VC and committed to keeping them out? The same inept, corrupt government that was unable to organize such a program themselves would be in charge again after the US left the scene - how would they fund and logistically support it?
Third, even if such a program were implemented, why would the peasantry stick with it after the US left? How would they benefit, given that the same inept, corrupt government continued to ignore the mass of the people and reward only the elites? Would not the egalitarian message of Ho look appealing then?
Finally, having served in the Army, I have an appreciation for how very difficult it is to change doctrine and training in a big way, quickly. Practically speaking, I do not think the Army could have made that truly massive shift. And it's worth pointing out that very few countries have ever executed a counter-insurgency effort successfully. The United States has never done so in its history.
I believe there are wars that are not worth fighting, and Vietnam was one. The author has not convinced me that it was a winnable war, nor has he shown a real strategic need to have fought it at all.
Having just listened to a lecture by Thomas Ricks about how George Marshall managed his general officer corps in WW2, I couldn't help thinking that if Marshall had been Army Chief of Staff in 1965, Westmoreland would have been fired in less than six months. The institutionalized lying that became the standard in Vietnam still haunts the Army, and it was done to demonstrate that "progress" was being made. Marshall was no fool, and would have fired any general who tried to cook the books, and also any general who made big promises and then failed to deliver.
There is a key discussion the author fails to address: it is probably true that the Army was forced into a war which, frankly, it had no business fighting, and this outcome was both a military and a political failure. Vietnam was simply not a war that the US was likely to win, no matter the strategy, in my opinion, so it was a political failure to commit the US Armed Forces to such a war. The British like to point to their successful anti-insurgent war in Malaysia as a template for what might have worked in Vietnam, but the situation there was very different than Vietnam, and also, Vietnam was very different from the US experience in Korea, another war sometimes used as a comparison. The real military failure dates to the Kennedy Administration, when the JCS should have told the president, "Sir, we are not constituted or prepared to fight a counter-insurgency war, and we don't think we should get into this". Harold Johnson, the Army Chief of Staff, nearly offered to resign over the commitment of combat troops to Vietnam, but he didn't, and so the Army went to Vietnam, and the results of that are well known.
The real question about Vietnam is, was it a strategic requirement for the US to be involved there? And even if the answer to that question is yes (which I doubt), was it reasonably likely that the US could win a war in Vietnam, if so, what would victory look like? In Korea, the answer to the first question was, maybe, but the answer to the second question was definitely yes, and victory looked like a restoration of the status quo ante on a peninsula where the flanks of US/South Korean Armies were guarded by the sea. The key factor in Vietnam that very few people in the US Army or US Government understood, was that the VC were a grass roots insurgency, not an invasion force sponsored by North Vietnam, as Westmoreland insisted. Enormous resources were spent by the US on "isolating" the South from "infiltration" from the North, when in fact, almost all of the personnel, and 85% of the material for VC operations were recruited/obtained in the South. By contrast, in Korea, there was never any equivalent to the VC in South Korea. It is really hard to understand how so many really bright people could have gotten the Vietnam decisions so badly wrong.
A key problem which plagued America's effort in Vietnam, from both a political and a military standpoint was the corruption of the South's government and Army (ARVN). The government was not responsive to the people, but rather to the clique's that were well-connected to the ruling elites, and this directly aided the VC recruit in the South. Unlike in Korea, the US Commander in Vietnam did not command the ARVN units, and therefore he could not give orders to the ARVN divisions, or relieve ineffective ARVN commanders, of which there were many. As a result of this lack of "unity of command" to use an Army phrase, Westmoreland relegated ARVN units to secondary tasks, and rarely used them alongside US forces in important missions, which had the secondary effect of demoralizing the ARVN units. By contrast, in Korea General Van Fleet worked tirelessly to improve the quality and equipment of the South Korean (ROK) Army, and he used the ROK Divisions as combat units equivalent to US Divisions, and just as importantly, Van Fleet had genuine respect for the ROK Army and its leaders, and he had an extremely close working relationship with the president of Korea. None of this was true of Westmoreland, who on more than one occasion expressed casual racist disdain for "orientals". Someone once asked Van Fleet why he worked so hard to equip and train the ROK Army, and his answer was, "Do you really think the US is going to keep eight divisions in Korea forever? The ROKs are going to be running things when we leave". Westmoreland had apparently never seriously considered what would happen when the US left Vietnam.
The author's main contention is that if the US had adopted counter-insurgency tactics similar to the Marine's CAPS program, the war could have been won. I disagree for several reasons:
First, if one follows the math, the number of troops required for successful country-wide counter-insurgency operations would have exceeded the highest number of combat troops deployed to Vietnam in about 1968. Notice I specify "combat troops" not all troops.
Second, even if the US deployed 100,000 counter-insurgency troops, properly trained (a big "if), what would have happened after 2-3 years when all the major population centers were now rid of VC and committed to keeping them out? The same inept, corrupt government that was unable to organize such a program themselves would be in charge again after the US left the scene - how would they fund and logistically support it?
Third, even if such a program were implemented, why would the peasantry stick with it after the US left? How would they benefit, given that the same inept, corrupt government continued to ignore the mass of the people and reward only the elites? Would not the egalitarian message of Ho look appealing then?
Finally, having served in the Army, I have an appreciation for how very difficult it is to change doctrine and training in a big way, quickly. Practically speaking, I do not think the Army could have made that truly massive shift. And it's worth pointing out that very few countries have ever executed a counter-insurgency effort successfully. The United States has never done so in its history.
I believe there are wars that are not worth fighting, and Vietnam was one. The author has not convinced me that it was a winnable war, nor has he shown a real strategic need to have fought it at all.
March 16, 2008
Krepinevich has a cult following among professors and students at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College. After reading his work I understand why. It is rare that ones comes across a book that radically changes the way one looks at military history. Thousands of books have been written on Vietnam and the movies "Platoon" and "Apocalypse Now" brought the war to millions of Americans. Until I read this book, I thought I understood the causes and conduct of the war. Krepinevich brilliantly analyzes how the U.S. Army planned for and conducted the war. How it tried to fight the war it wanted to fight, vice the war as it actually existed. Army leadership brought their conventional mindset to the jungles of Vietnam. The inability to adapt to change proved a greater threat to the U.S. Army than the North Vietnamese Army. The book rises above the personal narrative style that dominates most Vietnam books. Instead, the book is based on solid military analysis. Even more telling was how the U.S. Army failed to grasp the lessons of counter-insurgency following Vietnam and quickly returned to the conventional mindset it preferred. The writing is crisp and powerful. The lessons of this book remain vital today as the U.S. continues to struggle on how to best defeat America's latest enemies.
February 20, 2014
Although repetitive in nature, Krepinevich manages to cite a breadth of knowledge that points out why the Army failed in Vietnam. According to Krepinevich, the Army in particular was unprepared due to doctrine called the Army Concept. The US Army Concept revolves around the use of firepower to quickly overcome enemy forces. Furthermore, the value of US lives is important which makes the use of technology and firepower more important. Because of this, the Army in Vietnam utilized tactics and strategies not conducive to counterinsurgency. Krepinevich, points out the basic tenets of counterinsurgency. Among these include winning the "hearts and minds of the population" and the systematic destruction of insurgent forces. In Vietnam, the Army would neither win the support of the population or sufficiently deal with insurgent forces. In terms of winning the support of the population, the Army would lose it in different ways, such as, defoliation methods, indiscriminate killings, and failed relocation programs. In terms of defoliation, the Army would use chemicals to destroy foliage as to deny the Vietcong of access to supplies and cover. However, the defoliation would mostly affect the population. As for the insurgents, they would be able to find supplies from alternative sources. When it came to indiscriminate killings, the main goal of the Army was to simply kill as much Vietcong as possible to force them into submission. Furthermore, artillery and aviation officers would be promoted on the basis of Viet Cong killed and ammunition expended. Because of this, suspected Vietcong insurgents would be killed as to fulfill the quota needed by officers. When it came to relocations, the Army would force villages to relocate to safe areas as to create more "fire-free" zones. Programs such as these would displace villagers and result in refugees. All of these efforts that led to the loss of support were all aimed to simply destroy as many Viet Cong forces as possible. This is in accordance to the Army Concept of quickly winning the war and the utilization of superior firepower on the part of the US. Krepinevich, while showcasing the flaws of the Army, also offered explanations as to why the Army failed to adopt classical counterinsurgency in any meaningful form. According to Krepinevich, the Army's Concept of the use of superior firepower came from the Army's experiences in World War II and Korea. In both of these wars, the utilization of firepower served as a benefit to the US. Because of this, lessons drawn from both of these wars were used as a basis during the Vietnam War. Another reason why the Army wasn't prepared for counterinsurgency was because, during this time period the Army was focused on conducting conventional warfare In Europe against the USSR. Because of this, there was little incentive in the Army Hierarchy to adopt counterinsurgency tactics. The Army believed that their conventional warfare tactics would be good enough to combat insurgents in Vietnam. However, prior to the large US commitment to Vietnam, President Kennedy tried to push for more studies in counterinsurgency within the military. However, the military would barely comply since it didn't see the importance to studying counterinsurgency at the time. From Krepinevich's writing, we can learn that we should be careful in drawing lessons from the past. It could be seen that experiences in WWII and Korea greatly shaped the way the Army conducted warfare in Vietnam. If the Army approached Vietnam with a fresh look, they possibly could have altered the way they conducted warfare initially. Furthermore, when it comes to counterinsurgency, the Army experience in Vietnam is a classical case on how to not fight an insurgency.
December 27, 2013
Just re-read in full for the first time in probably eight years. Now that I'm more familiar with the documentary record concerning Vietnam (and not just the "Vietnam literature" or the COIN-as-military reform oeuvre, which in many cases are the same thing), Krepinevich's tendentious book holds up very poorly indeed. Greg Daddis's new work (detailed review to come!) – along with recent stuff by Birtle, Andrade, Cosmas, Carland, and others – should put the final nail in this one; I don't think it's unfair to say that "The Army and Vietnam" has been definitively falsified.
March 24, 2018
Fantastic and deep analysis of the Vietnam war. We underestimated many aspects, most important, the conventional threat. While we effectively countered the communist conventional forces, they drew US troops away from what was most important - the human geography.
An argument for population centric counter-insurgency, this books presents that and many other thoughts. Well worth the read.
An argument for population centric counter-insurgency, this books presents that and many other thoughts. Well worth the read.
December 8, 2023
Remarkable how hard it was for the Army to learn from its poor choice of doctrine/terribly counterproductive KPIs.
Being bigger/stronger/more technologically advanced buys you a ton of breathing room.
Being bigger/stronger/more technologically advanced buys you a ton of breathing room.
March 23, 2021
Critical look at Army's adherence to conventional warfare and refusal to pursue counterinsurgency.
June 18, 2024
The is a great source for the failures of the U.S. Army in Vietnam
April 25, 2025
I read this book to write my Vietnam counterinsurgency paper and it was a very good source of information and topics to include.
March 2, 2014
If like me you have some affection for the American army and for its soldiers, this is a depressing read. It relates how the Army went into Vietnam organized, trained, and equipped for major combat in Europe, and tried to apply the same concept to a counterinsurgency. The result was massive search-and-destroy operations that missed an elusive enemy and further alienated the population. There was no recognition that counterinsurgency was a different kind of war requiring different methods. The one part of the Army that was trained for irregular warfare, the Special Forces, were actually intended to help organize offensive partisan warfare behind Soviet lines. They did some good work organizing local defense units early in the war, but the US military command regarded this as a low-priority nuisance that diverted resources from the "real" war.
The top priority in a counterinsurgency is to protect the population and separate it from the insurgents. This is a defensive effort that went against the training and ethos of the US Army. So while the Army searched vainly in the jungles, the VC continued to infiltrate the populated regions. They staged a major uprising in early 1968, the Tet offensive, expecting a popular uprising would join them. No such thing happened, and the VC were almost wiped out, though after some heavy fighting. After that the Army started some efforts at protecting the population, but too little, too late, and half-heartedly. Their main interest was still the big-unit war. Ironically, when the North Vietnamese did attack with tanks and regular units in 1972 and 1975, and the Army's favored skills could have been really useful, political support for the war had so far eroded that that was impossible.
Most depressingly, Krepinevich writes (in the mid-1980s) that the Army had not taken the lesson to heart. Instead, the favored explanation of the failure in Vietnam was that the big-unit war had not been big enough. It should have been expanded with invasions of the North, or of Laos, to cut the supply line of the southern insurgents. However, up until Tet, the VC were supported mostly from sources within the South (at least according to Krepinevich). One wonders if the lesson has been learned now, after two more insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The book is professional and dispassionate. The author is believable and shows no obvious animus against the US or the US Army. My only critique is that the blow-by-blow accounts in some places become tedious and detract from the overall narrative.
The top priority in a counterinsurgency is to protect the population and separate it from the insurgents. This is a defensive effort that went against the training and ethos of the US Army. So while the Army searched vainly in the jungles, the VC continued to infiltrate the populated regions. They staged a major uprising in early 1968, the Tet offensive, expecting a popular uprising would join them. No such thing happened, and the VC were almost wiped out, though after some heavy fighting. After that the Army started some efforts at protecting the population, but too little, too late, and half-heartedly. Their main interest was still the big-unit war. Ironically, when the North Vietnamese did attack with tanks and regular units in 1972 and 1975, and the Army's favored skills could have been really useful, political support for the war had so far eroded that that was impossible.
Most depressingly, Krepinevich writes (in the mid-1980s) that the Army had not taken the lesson to heart. Instead, the favored explanation of the failure in Vietnam was that the big-unit war had not been big enough. It should have been expanded with invasions of the North, or of Laos, to cut the supply line of the southern insurgents. However, up until Tet, the VC were supported mostly from sources within the South (at least according to Krepinevich). One wonders if the lesson has been learned now, after two more insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The book is professional and dispassionate. The author is believable and shows no obvious animus against the US or the US Army. My only critique is that the blow-by-blow accounts in some places become tedious and detract from the overall narrative.
April 14, 2013
This was a fantastic analysis of the Army's failure to successfully prosecute the war in Vietnam. It was easy to stay interested as the narrative moves at a good pace and the events themselves are fascinating. This book outlines the failure of the JCS to appy the correct strategy to the ground war, in spite of lessons available from the French failure in Indochina and their experience in Algieria. While the Johnson administration micromanaged the airwar, they gave Westmoreland carte blanche to conduct the ground war in any way he saw fit. Westmoreland and MACV believed that overwhelming firepower and maneuver would defeat the VC and NVA. Operations were conducted in the hinterland; they should have been conducted near the coast and urban areas in order to deny the VC it's recruiting and resupply bases. Programs such as CORDS and the USMC Combined Action Platoons received little more than lip service and were never fully exploited. Krepinevich also describes how the obsession with body counts, and their inflation, indirectly led to the collapse of part of the US Clausewitzian triangle, the populace, after Tet, even though it was a U.S. victory. The Army was focused on fighting a limited conventional conflict to support a weak and unpopular government when they should have been focused on conducting a counterinsurgency campaign. Tet was a success because the NVA and VC began phase 3 operations which allowed the U.S. to effectively use its military muscle. The same is true of the success of the Easter bombings; the NVA began a conventional attack which was defeated. But the majority of the conflict was clearly a phase 2 insurgency and the U.S. strategy was completely inappropriate.
October 4, 2014
This book is now very dated. As someone deeply familiar with the historical record on the Vietnam War through archival research, I can say that while this book captures one part of the American experience in Vietnam, it fails to be comprehensive. Yes, the points and themes highlighted here were relevant to some units at some times, but the tendency to view Krepinevich's argument as being universally valid has led to an overly simplistic view of the Vietnam War. This has had consequences for recent literature like Nagl and Kilcullen. I wouldn't tell people that this book isn't worth reading at all, but I would take it with a large pinch of salt and read alongside Greg Daddis, Dale Andrade and Graham Cosmas.
December 3, 2009
interesting perspective on what should have happened for a successful intervention in Vietnam, but I felt the author kept placing the blame on the Army time and time again. yes, I realize that's the point of the book, but how many times can you drive the point home? endless, i guess! still, a very interesting and enlightening story about the experience.
June 16, 2008
Far and away the best analysis of the Army's strategy in Vietnam and why it failed...
January 23, 2013
Accurate, thorough, and wholly depressing. After reading this, one would presume that the United States could never make such critical and wasteful errors again. Wrong.
February 6, 2016
Population centric COIN is a panacea! At least according to Krepinevich....
Certainly some useful insights and critiques of the US approach in Vietnam, but also somewhat one dimensional
Certainly some useful insights and critiques of the US approach in Vietnam, but also somewhat one dimensional
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