NO MORE VIETNAMS Old Slogan, New Vision
Martin, Paul
The track record of the Central America movement in foreseeing the course of U.S. policy has been something less than overwhelming. We organized 80,000 people to pledge to oppose an...
...An invasion would provide the motor force for a militant anti-war movement: a "Central America movement" in the same sense that people speak of the "Vietnam war movement" of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which would create such social upheaval that the political cost of continued intervention would become greater than withdrawal...
...The possible benefits of broader alliances are overshadowed by concerns of defusing our energies and "losing" activists and resources to other struggles.* The War at Home What the movement needs is a new vision, a renewed understanding of how to win...
...Instead of becoming the dominant foreign policy issue of the 1980s as we had imagined...
...From the outset Central America activists have seen not only "another Vietnam" in Central America but "another anti-Vietnam war movement" in themselves...
...LIC thinking in fact mirrors the characteristics of the crisis described above...
...As a key U.S...
...An Altered World When in 1980-1981 the Reagan Administration projected El Salvador as the centerpiece of its campaign to "draw the line" against revolution in the Third World this view appeared more reasonable...
...But even the most fanatical LIC advocates readily acknowledge the long history of unconventional warfare...
...The polls show a steady majority of North Americans vaguely disapproving of it, but an equally steady majority so uninterested as to not even know which side their country is fighting on...
...As such, LIC doctrine is as much a response to the Third World debt crisis, food riots in Brazil, the Iran-Iraq war and Latin American migration to the United States, as it is to national liberation movements...
...Central Just as LIC ideologues criticize Pentagon bureaucrats for "fighting the last war" (i.e., World War II) rather than getting on with the "real war" they are in now, the Central America movement is still fighting our last successful struggle, the antiwar movement of the 1960s...
...These include: (1) extreme impoverishment and social displacement in the Third World which, combined with the REPORT ON THE AMERICAS U.S...
...In this context the discussion in these pages on the application of the emerging doctrine of "low-intensity conflict" (LIC) in Central America is a welcome, if overdue, development...
...aerial and sea bombardment, would seem the most likely candidate...
...Low-intensity ideologue Sam Sarkesian writes: "Most of America's experience prior to World War II was in countering those conducting unconventional warfare...
...2) increasing competition between, and hence a weakening of alliances among, the industrialized capitalist countries...
...South African blacks are in rebellion...
...farmbelt, or how the same policy which is denying democratic rights to the people of El Salvador is also stripping them away from U.S...
...military operations against the Seminole Indians (1836-1943), in the Philippines (1989-1901), and in Vietnam (1964-1972), one is struck by their similarities with respect to politicalmilitary problems, military operations, and insurgency forces...
...Though we are organizing at a different point in the global system than the people of Central America, our society is nevertheless tom by the same crisis...
...The following year the national leadership chose not to washington, D.C...
...2. A decision to repoliticize our work: not avoiding the issue of the "terrorists" in Central America but rather explaining what these "terrorists" have in common with the majority of North Americans...
...2) insists on the capacity and willingness of the United States to employ these options unilaterally if necessary...
...A defensive attitude vis-A-vis other international and domestic struggles has taken the place of our earlier self-confidence...
...House meetings as a form of * This point is exemplified by the major coalitions we have, or have not, participated in...
...We organized 80,000 people to pledge to oppose an invasion that has not taken place...
...At a minimum this implies: 1. A commitment to integrate with, not pull back from, the "other" struggles that are fueled by different manifestations of the same global crisis, from liberation movements in other parts of the Third World to fighting runaway shops and attacks on the black community in the United States...
...doctrine" must understand this too...
...To do so our vision must see much more than just Central America, and thus more than just a Central America movement...
...The problem is that a narrow focus on the elements of continuity is not helpful in answering the questions imposed by the necessity of action...
...This orientation continued through the movement'% absence from the Rainbow Coalition, its initial lack of any meaningful relation with the Free South Africa Movement, and the debate over participation in the multi-issue April Actions Coalition of 1985...
...But history is above all a process of change...
...But without an independent strategy to orient us we have been more led than leading in these relations...
...opportunities and interests will be inAmerica, and even specific countries, were seen as the "center" of the worldwide struggle for social justice and self-determination...
...much to our surprise it did, but without the effects we anticipated...
...imperialism has been around for a long time, and it is true that certain principles of military strategy have evolved which can be effectively applied across a remarkable range of conflicts...
...It begins by recognizing the global nature of the crisis...
...The 1983 Kupperman Report developed the point further: "The future does not offer the prospect of less conflict than the past...
...power worldwide...
...Space does not permit a thorough analysis of the current crisis of U.S...
...3. This does not mean discarding or even underemphasizing the ongoing efforts of the myriad of groups doing specific Central America work, or obscuring the urgency of improving coordination among them...
...hegemony, a crisis which was only beginning in the 1960s during the heyday of Kennedy's counwdecay of the political-military alliances and institutions set up under U.S...
...Rethinking a Movement While LIC strategists have been developing what former chief U.S...
...Escalating U.S...
...But with the exception of the excellent work by Sara Miles (April/May 1986), the discussion has stopped short of the question of what the movement should do in light of these Paul Martin is a freelance journalist who covers Central America...
...The process must go much deeper than simply discarding slogans such as "No More Vietnam Wars...
...Psychological operations, civic action, strategic hamlets-have we not heard all this before...
...and Secretary of Defense Weinberger has just returned from the Thai-Kampuchea border where U.S...
...But as the issue receded from the headlines, the networks retreated from the larger movement...
...not a focus on slogans or tactics, for our tactics, just like those of counterinsurgency, tend to remain constant...
...society into Army planning for low-intensity conflict indicates that our enemies have understood this...
...My own observations are an attempt to address this question...
...Most importantly, we have narrowed our conception of who we are and what we are trying to build...
...in response to civil disorder or terrorism...
...A "post-Vietnam anti-intervention participate in the peace contingent of the August 27 "Jobs, Peace & Justice" march...
...It is in these, at the low end of the conflict spectrum, that the U.S...
...Too close a focus on the tactics implemented on the ground is apt to lead us to overemphasize the continuity...
...The idea of the numbers in the "no" column developing into a mass movement that tears so deeply into domestic social stability that Reagan cries "uncle" seems rather far-fetched...
...Instead, an exclusively Central America/Caribbean-oriented action was called for November 12 which produced only one-fifth of the multi-issue action's turnout...
...New York City February 20, 1982 analyses...
...and (3) defines its targets primarily as the Third World, though not excluding the rest of the planet, at "home" in particular...
...On the other hand, such a focus does not provide the context within which to make sense out of the elements that are actually new...
...citizens, is not thinking strategically...
...On May 3, 1981, and March 27, 1982, when Central America was at the forefront of the progressive agenda, the solidarity networks threw themselves into mobilizing for broad, multi-issue demonstrations...
...We should instead defend the slogan by fighting for the definition of its content...
...The world today, however, presents a different picture...
...volved...
...The center of gravity of the crisis, instead of concentrating in Central America, is instead becoming more general...
...control...
...To redefine our terms of debate, therefore, we must broaden our conception of "anti-intervention" and rethink our very definition of "solidari(y...
...involvement in Central America was interpreted as leading inexorably to a large-scale invasion of U.S...
...What LIC does mean is that we are likely facing decades of Third World wars in which the United States will employ a wide array of tactics and weapons not commonly associated in the public imagination with what "war" is supposed to look like...
...It does mean understanding that this work in itself will not create a constituency powerful enough to effect real change in policy...
...Feeling ourselves to be without any power of our own, we have sought alliances with perceived friends in power...
...In the history of U.S...
...LIC doctrine is not simply a passing fad making the rounds of the military...
...If "No More Vietnam Wars" means nothing more than "no American casualties" it is indeed a LIC line...
...Many writers have tended to dismiss LIC doctrine as old hat -microwaved leftovers from decades of imperialist adventures that were defeated in Vietnam and will be defeated again in Central America...
...troops are going to "invade" anywhere, the Middle East, which has already been the target of U.S...
...and (3) economic stagnation, social polarization and the rise of the Reagan Right in the United States...
...Having once occupied the center stage of the peace movement, we have been unable to see ourselves now as one element of a broader whole...
...Army study, known as the Kupperman Report, states, "Low-intensity operations are not confined to overseas but may be necessary within the U.S...
...We demanded that Washington choose "Talks Not Troops...
...The crisis, and thus the doctrine, are not going to go away...
...Unfortunately, our movement has tended to accept the terms of debate dictated by LIC thinking...
...Response to Global Crisis What is new is the maturation of the crisis of the world political-economic order established after World War II under U.S...
...To a very large extent the Central America movement has been unable to adjust to this environment...
...Yes, terinsurgency experiment, but which is now taking increasingly global proportions...
...public are implemented as an integral part of lowintensity operations in the Third World...
...military adviser in El Salvador John Waghelstein calls "post-Vietnam counterinsurgency doctrine," the thinking in the Central America movement has remained somewhat static...
...Marcos has fled the Philippines, Duvalier has fled Haiti...
...Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger pointedly noted this fact when he referred to low-intensity conflicts as "the most immediate threat to free world security for the rest of the century...
...Within the limits imposed by continuity, it is this change that we must understand if we are to act to consciously shape the process to our liking...
...Central America is one of a half dozen or so Third World trouble spots that step into the public consciousness only at times of crisis...
...This analysis suggests that the development of such a strategy lies in the opposite direction of much of the work now being done...
...advanced U.S...
...This eventuality, or at least the serious threat of it, was seen as the essential link between the interests of people in both Central and North America...
...involvement in yet another contra war is escalating...
...Even broadening our perspective to include "the new generation of revolutionary governments that emerged in the mid- and late 1970s," as Joy Hackel and Peter Kornbluh do (Report on the Americas, June 1986), leaves our field of vision narrower than that which LIC doctrine seeks to address...
...Likewise, an analysis limited to the Central American region will prove inadequate...
...surface-to-air missiles are on their way to rebels in Afghanistan and Angola...
...That banner is far too effective, and the right to use it won at too high a price, to give it up simply because the New Right is attempting to co-opt it...
...hegemony, but a brief review of its manifestations is essential...
...There was no meaningful participation in the June 12, 1982 disarmament demonstration...
...political and military establishment, they do reflect the breadth and depth of the erosion of U.S...
...These conflicts will maintain their "low-intensity" character for prolonged periods of time, and while not sustaining media attention will inflict tremendous cumulative harm on the target societies...
...Rather than developing a new vision of how we might achieve our goals, we have groped our way ahead in a piecemeal fashion...
...And if U.S...
...But it also means U.S.backed dictators, denial of self-determination, strategic hamlets, Operation Phoenix, Agent Orange and much more...
...And the war in Central America JULY/AUGUST 1986 9 JULY/AUGUST 1986 9grinds on...
...F-Ills are bombing Tripoli...
...auspices, has resulted in the sharp deterioration of U.S...
...The question is what strategy can make house meetings lead to victory...
...In essence, LIC doctrine represents an attempt to fashion a comprehensive political-military response to this global crisis...
...in the broadest sense, America was a counterrevolutionary power...
...While these ideas do not represent a consensus in the U.S...
...And it can thus not be understood in its Central American context alone...
...The battle over how the collective memory of the Vietnam War is translated into the conflicts of the 1980s and beyond may be the most important "low-intensity conflict" now being fought...
...It means less emphasis on building centralized top-down organizations to lead the "Central America movement" and more on creating forums and networks at all levels through which the Central America organizations can unite their efforts with those of other popular sectors to build a real common social base...
...Already Army psychological operations against the U.S...
...April 20, 1985 community outreach, for example, will be effective as long as people live in houses...
...An activist who speaks about land reform in Nicaragua without mentioning the crisis in the U.S...
...focusing not on the tactics of low-intensity war but on the underlying values they defend...
...In the broadest sense, LIC doctrine is a political-military strategy that seeks to deal with the crisis in its totality...
...The integration of the suppression of "civil disorders" in U.S...
...The strategy accordingly (1) attempts to incorporate action ranging from propaganda, manipulation of various economic mechanisms, policing and "peace-keeping" actions, full-scale counterinsurgency warfare and "surgical" strikes from land, air and sea into a single spectrum of policy options...
...As LIC advocates emphasize, the capacity to flexibly move up to "mid-intensity" tactics while remaining within a low-intensity strategic framework is a key element of the doctrine...
...Emphasis added.] The rise of LIC doctrine does not mean that U.S troops will not invade Nicaragua, El Salvador, Libya or the Philippines...
...troops...
...in fact, the political entropy we face suggests an increasing breakdown of the established order and thus more, smaller conflicts...
Vol. 20 • July 1986 • No. 4
