Unsung Victory

The unrecognized success of American policy in Southeast Asia

Oct 12, 2024

Like if you want using the keys below; only I can see who you are.

It is axiomatic that US involvement in the conflict in Southeast Asia showed the failure of a poor policy, but this stock assessment falls short on the facts. Evidence for American success in Southeast Asia lies because the long-range goals of all US policy (the survival of the United States) were met, even if short-term ones (urvival of the Saigon regime) were not.

The South Remained “Free”

US policy promoting “freedom” in Southeast Asia was less a goal than it was a desire. The US had little interest in whether any Saigon government was a freely elected democracy or a tyranny, as long as it was not in the Soviet orbit. In superpower calculations of the 1960s, there was “our side” and “their side,” and even neutrals had to lean one way or another. As long as Saigon did not actively embrace communism, Washington was happy. That South Vietnam could not survive the American pullout was regrettable from a policy standpoint, but not quite disastrous to the long view of US survival and long-term interests. Southeast Asia was a strategic convenience to America, not a necessity, and Saigon was useful while it lasted.

The Americans Did Not Lose

This was undeniably true: American forces lost no major battles, campaigns or offensives in a conventional military sense. The American ground forces never succumbed to being outfought and always regained any vital position, base, or outpost they lost.

Cambodia and Thailand Remained “Free”

In relation to the Saigon government, US policy up to 1975 embraced the belief that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," and actively promoted this ideology from the platforms of policy, refining it to a high standard. US policymakers believed that any government that did not openly support Marx and did not jeopardise American interests was acceptable, regardless of appearances. America actively courted non-populist governments—including those of Iran, Iraq, Chile, South Africa, Rhodesia, Paraguay and Venezuela—to keep them out of the Soviet sphere.

The US Did Not Disintegrate

By 1967, popular opinion of the conflict had deteriorated even while there were successes on the battlefields, and the balance between the PAVN and US military forces could have changed drastically in any major campaign. General Westmoreland was, in that regard, correct when he said that the US was winning the war in early 1968. But the Tet offensive in January 1968 changed all the calculations, not because it dashed hopes for victory, but because the spectacular successes of the Viet Cong were so unexpected. The images of the desperate fighting appeared on television, completely removed from context, shocking the folks back home who had been told that they were winning the war. A LIFE Magazine cover showed the execution of a VC cadre without explanation, further damning the conflict and the Saigon government. Within days of the beginning of the offensive, new polls showed that support for the war had reversed, and within months evaporated completely. War and draft protests became violent, with casualties on both sides, joined by civil rights marchers, militant feminists, and others amid lurid tales of infamous massacres by US troops.

America elected Richard Nixon in 1968 on a platform of “law and order,” with a “secret plan” to end the war.

All sides negotiated the end of the war in 1973, after Nixon’s landslide reelection. Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment for corruption in 1974 without a word said about Vietnam: The most infamous war never touched the most notorious of presidents. Gerald Ford took over and pardoned him, without even suggesting a hint of Southeast Asia policy in his pardon. During Ford’s watch, Saigon fell to their internal enemies, helped by their northern neighbors, followed by Cambodia’s takeover by the Khmer Rouge in 1975. Morale in the US Army was at a low ebb, but the civilians were preparing for their bicentennial party in 1976, having all but forgotten the “disaster” in Vietnam.

Jimmy Carter followed Ford in 1977.

Carter stood by while Iran imploded, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and Africa and Latin America sparked into open Marxist revolts. Many thought American power and influence to be at an end by 1979. Ronald Reagan came to office in 1981, and he built up the armed forces and announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, which compelled the Soviets to overspend. That, coupled with their failed war in Afghanistan, would spell the doom of their polity. From the ugly surprise of Tet in January 1968 and the public approbation that followed, to the practically (American) bloodless rout of Iraqi forces in Kuwait in February 1991 with widespread popular support at home, the Americans came full circle in terms of national resolve and military capacity, while the Soviets had yet to reconcile their withdrawal from Afghanistan two years before.

The Soviets Failed to Exploit

Even those who regard the US war in Southeast Asia as a “loss” concede that it was one of many proxy conflicts after 1948 involving the US and the Soviet Union. The real object wasn’t who was in the middle; the point was not to lose to the Other Side, or to be perceived by the rest of the world as winning. In this context, it is difficult to remember that the “real” conflict in the Cold War had been in Europe, and it still was in 1968. After 1948, the two sides spoke in terms of “our Germans” and “their Germans” as if they were roosters in a ring. The largest concentration of Soviet troops outside the Soviet Union for the entire American involvement in the Vietnam conflict was in Eastern Europe, waiting for the signal to roll forward and “reunify” Germany.

Holding on to Germany was the key element of US foreign policy in Europe.

Despite this, the Army, in need of warm bodies, stripped its USAEUR units ruthlessly. In the spring of 1968, the eight US division equivalents in Germany, and their corps and army support units, had fewer than 90,000 ground troops, from the nearly 140,000 they should have had. USAFE could boast barely 600 combat aircraft of all types. Their only hope of delaying an invasion by the Soviets was in using their arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons, which would likely have escalated into a full-scale strategic nuclear exchange. For this reason, their deployment would not likely have occurred.

Why, then, didn’t the Soviets just roll forward?

Their mathematicians had calculated every possibility and all the odds; the Red Army had rehearsed their battle for Germany over and again. It is likely the Soviets never felt as if they were powerful enough to hold Germany against a determined NATO, and losing a bid for West Germany would likely have led to losing everything else in Europe, a risk no Soviet boss was willing to take. As weak as the Americans were in Germany in the 1960s and ‘70s, and as divided as the US would be between Saigon and Kuwait, the Soviets still thought America was stronger than the Soviets were at their perceived peak.

Prevail: The New Victory

If history were to look at the American experience in Southeast Asia less in its particular parts and more as one of many battles in the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the US, this policy “mistake” might look more like other ways to wear the Soviets down. If so, particularly in an era where popular culture can invent a “new black,” or proclaim 50 to be the “new 30,” or when biological men can claim to be women, historians can redefine “winning.” They can point to American policy in Southeast Asia and say that it was instrumental in the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the end of the Soviet threat, and announce it as part of the “new victory.” American policy in Southeast Asia, then, looks insightful, if painful.

Winning isn’t only defined as standing on top of the hill; it’s the ability to stand anywhere when your opponent cannot.

Tideline: Friendship Abides

Tideline is about the four young people you met in Stella’s Game, and it takes place during this very volatile Cold War, the aftermath of Vietnam, and the minor triumphs of their own lives.

While three of the friends serve in the Army, the fourth is in the Navy…yet…they all find each other again amid the turmoil of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Available from your favorite bookseller or from me if you want an autograph.

Coming Up…

War Without End
Six Ways to Rewrite History V

And Finally...

On 12 October:

1810: Oktoberfest begins in Munich, Bavaria, as part of a week-long celebration of Crown Prince Ludwig’s marriage to Princess Theresa of Saxe-Hildburghausen. The prince invited the citizens of Munich to a meadow named in honor of the princess to, of course, drink beer and eat. With a few exceptional years, Oktoberfest has been observed/celebrated ever since, gaining worldwide acceptance by the early 20th Century.

2000: A suicide boat attacks guided missile destroyer USS Cole while fueling at a dock in Aden, Yemen. For this deadliest attack on a US ship since USS Stark in 1987, the al-Qaida terrorist organization claimed responsibility, one of their year 2000 millennium attack plots. Seventeen American sailors were killed and 37 injured because of the attack, which failed to sink the vessel. The mastermind of the attack was subsequently killed when he and three other plotters flew into the Pentagon on 11 September 2001.

And today is NATIONAL FREETHOUGHT DAY. Celebrating the end of the Salem witch trials in 1692, this is a day when we are encouraged to think freely, basing their opinions on demonstrable and testable facts, logic, science, and reason. The day also promotes evidence-based decision making and logic. It’s more about not being constrained by someone else’s fixed and irrevocable “facts”, which often aren’t facts at all.