Practicing History_ Selected Essays - Barbara W. Tuchman [147]
Further propositions: The situation in South Vietnam, as regards “freedom from aggression” and democratic institutions, not to mention the general welfare of the people, is worse off than it was before the U.S. moved in. The affairs and reputation of the U.S. itself have steadily deteriorated since our military involvement began. Control of the war and of the policy perpetuating it is in the hands of a President who has locked himself on course and, whether from personal pride or failure to comprehend what is happening, is unwilling to deviate, adjust, or alter direction. One keeps waiting for signs that this is not so—that Mr. Johnson may after all have an ear open to the sounds of history—but no signs appear. By now it seems an absolute that the President is unable to alter course; ergo that the war will not be terminated nor will we get out of it without a change of administration.
Why not termination by victory? Because militarily it is axiomatic that a belligerent cannot win a war without gaining the initiative and taking the offensive, thereby either destroying the enemy’s armed forces or cutting them off definitively from their source of supply. For reasons with which everyone is familiar we cannot engage in an all-out offensive. Nor, without virtually forcing Russia or China or both to retaliate, thus precipitating a world war, can we get around the back of North Vietnam to cut its line of communications. Commendably enough, the President has recognized this and has resisted, up to now at least, whatever pressure may be exerted on him either by soldiers understandably frustrated in their profession or by narrow-brained hawks of the “let’s-finish-them-off” school.
Precluded from the all-out offensive, we are fighting the most costly and cruelly destructive of all conflicts—a war of attrition. No one has wanted to resurrect that phrase of evil memory from World War I, but it might as well be made explicit. The strategy is futile, in the first place, because the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong are fighting for their country and for a cause and therefore have a stronger motive for enduring than we have, besides resting on the material support of Russia and China. It is indefensible in the second place because it is destroying the land and welfare and lives of the people we are supposed to be fighting for.
Yet we persist, with escalation our only answer, as the generals of 1914–18 persisted in the progressive slaughter of the Western front, where the commanders stumbled forward in the old ruts, not questioning whether to assault the front again but only where along its wall to bang their heads. Johnson is General Sir Douglas Haig—with a significant difference: that whereas Haig’s limitless capacity for throwing away lives was ultimately restrained by civilian control, Johnson is the civilian control. His is the last word—except for the electorate.
In 1914–18 the Allies won the war of attrition in the end only because of the accretion of a new belligerent, the U.S. In the present case it is plain from the evidence that we are not winning—even if we knew what, in this war, constitutes winning, which is not clear to anyone. On February 23 the Wall Street Journal, which is not committed to any position except one of hardheaded realism, acknowledged that “the logic of the battlefield” suggests that the U.S. could be “forced out of an untenable position” and that this country should “be prepared for