A Political Solution for Vietnam?
Falk, Richard A.
THE POOR PROSPECTS for peace in Vietnam arise directly from the military and political situation. Militarily, the war continues to be a stalemate, neither side being capable of winning, but...
...Politically, there is no stalemate...
...the NLF remains, as it has for more than ten years, the only national presence with the organization and capability to rule South Vietnam...
...The Saigon regime more or less controls a large army and somewhat manages a corrupt bureaucracy, but it has no base in Vietnamese society that would allow it to survive peace and withdrawal...
...Everything about the behavior of the Thieu-Ky group indicates its acceptance of this assessment: its opposition to the Paris negotiations, its policy of imprisoning all nonCommunist political leadership that favors a compromise-ending of the war, and its continuing commitment to and promise of victory over the NLF on the battlefield...
...Prolonging the agony in Vietnam cannot, as Irving Howe says, be expected to work for long in the United States...
...The NLF relies almost exclusively on local resources and captured equipment...
...It is essential that the Nixon Administration not be deceived by these tactics, or else the war could drag on for several more years...
...No American President is likely to announce at this stage that the war has been lost and to commence toward a process of unilateral withdrawal...
...The typical proposals to blockade or bomb Haiphong and to resume heavy bombing of North Vietnam may increase the difficulties of supplying the main force units of the DRV, but it will not seriously diminish the fighting capabilities of the NLF...
...The high casualties will continue, and the official mood in Washington will oscillate meaninglessly between optimism and pessimism, neither phase being responsive to the persistence of NLF control at the village level...
...THE POOR PROSPECTS for peace in Vietnam arise directly from the military and political situation...
...We are left, then, with the persisting challenge of finding a formula to convert the military stalemate into a political compromise...
...These offers seem designed to placate Washington and to create the impression that Saigon is doing all that can reasonably be expected to end the war...
...The course...
...Taking this course, Nixon would be trying something new to achieve peace, taking a constructive risk in the direction of deescala tion and decommitment, a risk that can be reappraised over a fairly long time span, and one that nevertheless is coordinated with the responsibility America has for doing what it can even at this stage to give South Vietnam a counterstructure to the NLF...
...The only tangible evidence that the Thieu leadership really seeks a compromise to end the war would involve a shift in its attitude regarding third-force politics in Saigon...
...We must not be deceived by President Thieu's offers to negotiate directly with the NLF...
...political demands...
...So long as those groups that would alone be able to support a political compromise in South Vietnam are treated as criminals, it is impossible to believe that the Saigon regime seriously seeks a negotiated end to the war...
...The Thieu-Ky government has no incentive for such an outcome of the war...
...These third-force 196 COMMENTS AND OPINIONS groups seek a negotiated settlement of the war that would entail some degree of territorial and political sharing of power with the NLF (i.e., the presumed objective in Paris...
...If the United States goes along with Saigon's wishes, then the military stalemate seems virtually certain to persist for an indefinite period...
...5) inform Saigon that withdrawal would give way to the search for a negotiated compromise as soon as third-force politics were given free play in South Vietnam and a cooperative role was played in Paris by the GVN...
...The United States now is probably not in a position to dictate these terms to Saigon, but it might be able to exert such an influence if it began acting as if the alternative to opening-up South Vietnam to the politics of compromise and coalition was the withdrawal of U.S...
...As soon as the American forces leave, the political dominance of the NLF would assert itself throughout the countryside, the junior military leadership of ARVN would be likely to defect or at least to remain aloof, and some kind of takeover in Saigon would likely deprive the present rulers of their power, and possibly of their life...
...forces...
...It involves senseless destruction that will not alter the basic battlefield situation, and it would create even less flexibility for American policymakers than exists now...
...Can we find a policy to change the situation...
...The essence of such a policy is the creation of some greater leverage over the Saigon government, specifically some way to induce that government to release most of the 20,000 non-Communist political prisoners ("conservative" estimate of a "White Paper" on political prisoners prepared by the Fellowship of Reconciliation) and to find some means to protect third-force politics in Saigon from undue harassment, especially the leaders of the Buddhist Struggle Movement and of student groups, and such prominent political figures as Truong COMMENTS AND OPINIONS Dinh Dzu...
...Such a posture of slow withdrawal might be appropriately accompanied by two secret communications: (1) inform Hanoi that the process of withdrawal was conditional on no increase in the level of combat of DRV main force units...
...But reescalation is at least as unattractive...
...forces at the rate of 50,000 per two months would begin to generate pressure on the Thieu-Ky regime leading it to topple or to grow more compliant to U.S...
...Such reescalation would certainly re-adrenalize the peace movement in the United States and generate a wave of censure and revulsion the world over...
...Militarily, the war continues to be a stalemate, neither side being capable of winning, but both being able to deny victory to the opponent indefinitely...
...The one reward of "liberation" is to become "a free...
...Vietnam is largely a country of villages...
...These policy recommendations may not produce the intended results, but they will produce some dynamism to move the Ameri can position beyond the present impasse...
...they are mostly in jail or hiding in the countryside...
...As recently as March 15, Tich Tien Minh, one of the most important Buddhist leaders in the country, was arrested with 50 of his student followers...
...bombing zone...
...Perhaps such a proposal can at last end this agony that we have hitherto so largely inflicted on Vietnam and ourselves through the blindness of our politicians and the stubborn pride of our generals...
...The initiation of a phased withdrawal of U.S...
...In the interim, Paris negotiations should be continued, but without any hope for breakthroughs until the posture of withdrawal begins to have a political impact in Saigon...
...It is dominant in many "secure" parts of South Vietnam, but obscures its presence to avoid American bombing...
...he was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor for seeking a compromise peace...
...But then what...
...Nixon's chances to restore American prestige in the world depend on finding new policies for Vietnam that involve neither doing nothing nor doing too much...
...withdraw all of its troops if Saigon refuses to change its attitude toward third-force pol itics or if it should collapse under the pres sure of the new American policy...
...The humiliation of ratifying an NLF victory, followed possibly by a heavy round of reprisals and even by a quick Pathet Lao takeover in Laos, would be a cost that the Nixon Administration could not be expected to risk...
...I am proposing is that the U.S...
...Third-force leaders with any actual or potential political following in South Vietnam are treated as criminals by Saigon...
Vol. 16 • May 1969 • No. 3
