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To Build as Well as Destroy: American Nation Building in South Vietnam
For years, the "better war" school of thought has argued that the United States built a legitimate and viable non-Communist state in South Vietnam in the latter years of the Vietnam War, and that it was only the military "abandonment" of this state that brought down the Republic of Vietnam. But Andrew J. Gawthorpe, through a detailed and incisive analysis, shows that, in fact, the United States failed in its efforts at nation-building and had not established a viable state in South Vietnam.
Drawing on newly opened archival collections and previously unexamined oral histories with dozens of U.S. military officers and government officials, To Build as Well as Destroy demonstrates that the U.S. never came close to achieving victory in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Gawthorpe tells a story of policy aspirations and practical failures that stretches from Washington, DC, to the Vietnamese villages in which the US implemented its nation-building strategy. Structural factors which could not have been overcome by the further application of military power thwarted U.S. efforts to build a viable set of non-communist political, economic, and social institutions in South Vietnam.
To Build as Well as Destroy provides the most comprehensive account yet of the largest and best-resourced nation-building program in U.S. history. Gawthorpe's analysis helps contemporary policy makers, diplomats, and military officers understand the reasons for this failure. At a moment in time when American strategists are grappling with military and political challenges in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, revisiting the historical lessons of Vietnam is a worthy endeavor.
Drawing on newly opened archival collections and previously unexamined oral histories with dozens of U.S. military officers and government officials, To Build as Well as Destroy demonstrates that the U.S. never came close to achieving victory in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Gawthorpe tells a story of policy aspirations and practical failures that stretches from Washington, DC, to the Vietnamese villages in which the US implemented its nation-building strategy. Structural factors which could not have been overcome by the further application of military power thwarted U.S. efforts to build a viable set of non-communist political, economic, and social institutions in South Vietnam.
To Build as Well as Destroy provides the most comprehensive account yet of the largest and best-resourced nation-building program in U.S. history. Gawthorpe's analysis helps contemporary policy makers, diplomats, and military officers understand the reasons for this failure. At a moment in time when American strategists are grappling with military and political challenges in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, revisiting the historical lessons of Vietnam is a worthy endeavor.
300 pages, Hardcover
First published December 15, 2018
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January 21, 2024
The book is well-researched, but it seems to meander. I would recommend it to anyone wishing to learn more about the failure of nation-building in Vietnam, but it does not seem to get down to ground level. It is like many Vietnam war books; it longs at everything from 20.000 feet. If he had just concentrated on CORDS it would be a better book.
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