Fighting a Sticky War

...What does not make sense is the implication that strokes in these oblique directions have enough promise to justify the risk of an expanded war...

...Pork Chop Hill and Battle at Best...

...But it is not notably for lack of harmony that we have thus far failed...

...The burden of responsibility in Southeast Asia, and not alone in Vietnam, has become pack-saddled on the American military, not hereafter to be shifted...

...It must view with alarm any contract which, by giving its enemies a new cry, might further diminish the prestige of its central figure...

...True enough, naming a soldier to the top position in Saigon may better insure that political aims and military actions arc harmonious...

...options...

...Then a meeting of Senators to discuss a larger role for the United Nations in the pacification of Southeast Asia coincided with the liquidation of UN military intervention in the Congo—not because the problem there was solved, but because the effort had bankrupted the world organization...

...To imagine that the Saigon Government can gradually reverse the conditions which continue to shrink its authority is like expecting a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps when sprawled...

...The danger and violence extend everywhere...

...The extension of the combat awards system to Americans in Vietnam is tacit recognition of this reality...

...Direct support by the United States is proposed because nothing else applies at the critical point...

...In early 1962, the fighting will of the Viet Army was relatively keen...

...To bring it off in Vietnam requires deep and continuous patrolling day and night to regain use of main roads, in addition to the support of detachments engaged in clear-and-hold operations and the mounting of ambushes along the back trails...

...That keeps too much of the trained manpower rooted to fixed bases remote from the more menaced areas...

...Every war is a bottomless pit...

...All brushfire wars in our time—Malaya, Greece, Laos, the Congo—have been particularly sticky little wars, which suggests that no exception is to be expected in the future...

...There is no reason why he should be...

...When the moot question is whether paying too much for victory is more acceptable than paying too little for defeat, there is never an ideal way out...

...A STRATEGY FOR VIETNAM Fighting a Sticky War By S. L. A. Marshall Every recent development affecting South Vietnam has served only to highlight the dilemma facing the United States in that country...

...If it were true, formal forces could never have been created and the jungle would be everywhere...

...To the objections, history provides an answer...

...Example: The strategic hamlet concept of itself has no promise...

...Practically unanimously, the national press acclaimed the choice as presaging a change to a bold new course in Indochina...

...In Vietnam, there is very little...

...It requires some powerful stimulant that restores hope...

...Questions about how two such oddly-paired forces should be fitted together, how tasks should be apportioned and what equations of men and weapons promise the highest return, need not be resolved beforehand...

...A main argument for the buildup, according to Deputy Defense Secretary Cyrus Vance, was that it might become necessary to send troops to two brush-fire wars at one time to damper Communist aggression...

...That theme has been worn thin by a whole library of new books about guerrillaism and counterinsurgency...

...If clear-and-hold operations arc to pay off, there must first be a stiffening by the Vietnamese Army...

...When General Taylor rolls back the Vietcong by putting on jungle boots, and Deputy Ambassador Johnson intimidates their Communist backers by giving them the word, that will be the day—as last week's conflict between Saigon and Washington made clear...

...What we have tried is contrary to what we know about how to infuse troops with a fighting spirit...

...As anxieties about the future mount in the soldier, he communes less with the peasant, and huddles because there seems no better way to prolong life...

...Subsequently the belligerent tone was deliberately softened...

...Legally, what we have in Vietnam is a civil war...

...Viet Shuffle Means Showdown with Red China," and "LBJ Sends Win Team to Vietnam," were typical headline reactions...

...Secretary Dean Rusk is again cushioned against criticism, as when last summer a Republican stalwart, Henry Cabot Lodge, took over the hot seat...

...The more success any insurgency enjoys, the less possible it becomes to influence by remote control...

...an operations scheme which may only be validated by surprise becomes a mockery when information fails...

...Within that power array, however, we do have for the first time trained and well-equipped forces of the right kind in sufficient number for the only contest that immediately concerns the United States...

...Other values have been hazarded through General Taylor's volunteering for this task...

...American troops would not take it...

...No declaration is needed...

...Army combat units to Vietnam, not because it would rock the UN, but because we shudder at the thought of more Americans getting killed...

...The "immaculate war" that the Chiefs and Indians would like to fight—the violence that falters when flown over, the insurgancy which subsides from a small clobbering by air bombs— is the affair least likely to arise, a figment of the imagination...

...So it might work out again...

...No four-star general sheds his identity along with his soldier suit...

...What is needed is a heavier commitment of American field forces—light armor to open the roads and keep them clear, infantry to deploy with the tanks, to rig night ambushes, and possibly to take over as a main strike force, should the Vietnamese deploy more widely as the covering shield...

...We see in Saigon a weak government, beset by civil war, in considerable danger of being toppled from within by rival claimants to the seat of power, under harassment from religious groups not identified with the enemy, and unable to command steadfast loyalty from its own military...

...No convenient umbrella of alliance covers the war zone...

...We have in Vietnam one brushfire set and fed by Communists...

...A confused mind is the natural affliction of the average Vietnamese, soldier or farmer...

...It should be pikestaff plain that the immediate problem is to re-energize the Viet Army, and the main question is how to do it...

...The Vietcong get only a fraction of their combat supply from the outside, the bulk being wrested from the Viet Army in battle...

...4 man in the State Department, as Taylor's Deputy...

...In November 1961, while serving as military advisor to the White House, he went on a mission to Saigon to determine what should be done to block the Vietcong...

...They accept combat risks as they arise because they see no other way to hearten the troops for whom they feel responsible...

...If anybody can get across to the Red Chinese the fateful message that we will tight, it is Johnson...

...But to employ an army as if it were a fire department when a community is collapsing from lack of police power seems hardly sensible...

...But it is as idle to talk about more and better U.S...

...The first happens because more people of the countryside, out of fear, have stopped cooperating...

...But since growth without use is merely monstrous, it is not surprising that guerrillas in the Indochina jungle do not reel from it...

...Such tactics are but normal extensions of conventional warfare...

...On reporting back, he had about one-third of his program accepted and the rest was disapproved...

...There is as little support for deploying U.S...

...Until that grip is loosened, all reports of progress are illusory...

...Yet since we have the advisory role, the Vietnamese should be asking and we should be reviewing our own processes...

...Just because it is there and its top man is leaving for "the only war we've got," the prestige of the armed services is wholly at stake...

...We are still tied down more in Europe in consequence of victory in World War II than in Korea as the result of a fight to a draw...

...Whether a military man or a diplomat leads the team is truly unimportant, provided mutual respect is present and the best use is made of both brains...

...They go after power and spoils for their own good...

...One Washington correspondent wrote this sockdologer: "Taylor will wear the reptile-repellant boots of the jungle fighter more often than the gray vest of a diplomat...

...They do not go in for night operations, guarding close to the baited villages, inviting the Congs to come on and taking gambling chances on being overrun...

...Thinning out would result in more of them being surprised and killed...

...That is the Gordian Knot that may only be cut by some makeshift that will save face without undue sacrifice of operating independence...

...The very size of the armed establishment puts it in an invidious position with respect to Vietnam...

...pay, Korean soldiers crewing the fire direction centers for American artillery, and Korean replacements filling the gaps in the U.S...

...The farmer simply wants the war to stop and leave him alone to harvest his rice and sweet potatoes...

...There was also enthusiasm for the naming of U. Alexis Johnson, No...

...Even so, its troops tabooed night operations and had no zest for deep penetration, except for airborne forays against a known target...

...Yet it is inconceivable that American field forces could be placed under Vietnamese control, if indeed our public opinion and the preoccupation of policy-makers with painless solutions would permit a broadened participation on any terms...

...General Taylor's record on Vietnam is mixed and his present attitude is unknown...

...The steady drain on the morale of this Army is the fear that the United States will pull out, the advisers will pack up and go home, and all will be lost...

...Between two allies, one a great power, the other very small, it would fit like a hairshirt, especially when the weaker partner fields the most troops...

...Viet regiments are not widely deployed...

...Our national tradition and pride are against it...

...I insist that the notion that organized armies have no tactics which can counter guerrilla terrorism is a modern myth...

...General Khanh...

...In Korea, the switch from a MAAG operation to a combat partnership was politically uncomplicated...

...Still, there is no sentiment anywhere in Washington for committing many more Americans to lighting operations in Vietnam...

...All such considerations narrow U.S...

...In private, I have heard several four-star admirals say that if we are to extend the gamble in Southeast Asia, we should strike straight at Hanoi and do it big...

...Practically, it is the wrong thing to do...

...Where neatly defined boundaries do not exist, there is little room for semi-independent command...

...Our conventional fighting establishment is larger and more costly than ever before in peacetime—and made so at General Taylor's urging...

...It also induces command carelessness in controlling the decisively important overland communications, on which the Vietcong now has a stranglehold...

...An occasional local victory will not re-vitalize the mass of a dispirited army...

...Thus misused, there would result no propping effect to the Viet Army...

...But when it is linked with wider deployments and closer guarding by heavier hitting forces, it could produce significant stabilization...

...S. L. A. Marshall, a frequent contributor, is the author of Night Drop...

...The tactical system does not exploit their three main advantages—superior numbers, firepower and defensive protection...

...Still, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he went along with a build-up based on half-measures...

...Guerrillaism is the oldest form of warfare known to man...

...Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, according to his record, will not disavow the credit...

...The sending of more American fighting units to fight the fire does not require a change of basic policy by the United States...

...Those members of the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAO) who are out in the bush with the forward elements of the Viet Army have performed beyond praise...

...But before it can be put on the high road, unprecedented political problems have to be solved...

...No precedents apply...

...the second is a basic symptom of deep-seated troop demoralization...

...It is possible that veiled threats and parades of force may make Peking cautious...

...There was first a rash of official pronouncements warning that the U.S...

...Even so, ROK forces were kept nominally under Rhee's control, commanders were relieved or shifted about to suit his political whims, and he sometimes ordered troops to take actions which the Supreme Command disapproved...

...How and where was it ever eliminated except by superior tactics applied by conventionallytrained soldiers...

...Sharing of responsibility is seldom an agreeable arrangement between close comrades...

...President Johnson spoke in his New London speech of the "staggering strength" of the U.S...

...But a consciousness of that should not stop the General Staff from exploring to the limit the grim alternatives in a deteriorating situation...

...There are no panaceas...

...But by risking more, they would kill far more guerrillas...

...And in the unlikely event that there should be a swift brightening...

...In Vietnam either the military campaign succeeds or no feat of diplomacy will redeem what is lost...

...Combined operations in Vietnam could not be compartmentalized as in Korea...

...There still remained within the situation latitude for effective compromise...

...Our impression that it is fomented from behind the Bamboo Curtain no more alters the fact than do denunciations of Red China...

...might go to war against Communist China if further provoked...

...Therefore, once the United Nations had embraced his cause, Synghman Rhee could agree to the appointment of an American as Supreme Commander without loss of dignity or the yielding of any meaningful portion of sovereignty...

...In a typical recent incident, an Army brigadier twice in one afternoon directed his chopper pilot to land in the face of enemy fire because a friendly detachment had been wiped out, an American captain had died with it, and he felt he had to know what had happened...

...Their strength—and I mean line combat units—was radically increased during the Kennedy years...

...In Korea we dealt by definition with an international war made when a Communist aggressor overtly violated a boundary to conquer free territory...

...What was extracted from his program has proved to be not enough, and the essence of his problem lies in the fact that there is no viable alternative to the course taken since his initial estimate...

...Nearly everyone prefers that it should be done vicariously...

...The same physical conditions which make requisite clear direction from the top command and highly centralized control enormously complicate the working out of a pattern for operations using combined forces...

...There is no formal front...

...The trouble is, there are not enough such Americans in action to lift the Vietnamese out of the slough...

...Army forces in large numbers need not be rushed to Vietnam...

...Before the Korean War was well along, we had MAAG detachments with Republic of Korea ROK units, a Korean Service Corps drawing U.S...

...A final point is that to overcome the inertia settled on the Vietnamese, the Americans would have to join operations with them as closely and as extensively as possible...

...Fresh initiative of that kind should not be expected of them in their present demoralized state...

...military which "will continue to grow more rapidly than the might of all others...

...Viet troops have performed best where the MAAG advisers have done exactly that...

...The fight, after all, is in South Vietnam...

...Last, it would endorse a third-rate generalship, from which the conduct of the war and the nerves of MAAG advisers have already suffered enough...

...The greater momentum of the Vietcong drive carries it beyond the reach of Hanoi and Peking...

...Hitting operations against the Vietcong have dwindled, both because of the drying up of field intelligence and the unwillingness of company grade officers to engage their troops...

...Everyone agrees that it is necessary for American forces to learn more about how to stop Communist guerrillas...

...When gunners are thus favored, infantrymen, feeling sorry for themselves, are less bold...

...The Vietnamese infantry, for the most part, is laagered in the safer spots to sortie over distance on daytime shooting missions when the fire call comes, because that was the hit-and-run design which our tacticians fixed on them...

...The objections are both numerous and valid...

...These conditions make any meaningful yielding of military authority to an American for the duration the most delicate of issues...

...Unless there is a quick turn for the better in Vietnam, the Pentagon professionals will be blamed...

...Then there is another thing: Unlike regular forces, guerrillas are not directly responsive to political restraint...

...Khanh's decisive task is to promote national unity by winning active support from the determining number of South Vietnamese...

...training as a cure-all for South Vietnam's Army as to propose that the people should be more strongly indoctrinated...

...Not more than 3,500 Communist replacements come to it yearly from the north, the rest being locally recruited...

...I am talking about five or six regimental combat teams, reinforced with armor, scout cars and such highly effective antiques as the Quad-50 and Twin Boffers...

...Each service fights to hold onto its peaked strength, while justifying the levels with theories about threats which might arise, having little or no relation to history as it unfolds...

...In tactics it is easier to ask questions than to be sure of answers...

...But if to speak of Korea may seem to imply only the need of another bold decision in Washington, I hasten to point out that there is much more to it than the ugly question of whether the nation can again brace to great risks and higher combat losses...

...Many things about the structure and posture of the Viet Army, mostly of our own shaping, raise doubts...

...To surrender a large slice of sovereignty by passing supreme military command to a foreigner would make him liable to the charge that he was chief puppet in a captive government...

...So while zones of military authority may be designated, they are not like sectors fronted by an entrenched line...

...Only out of various programs coordinated to a central purpose comes a chance for success...

...No amount of assurance to the contrary has offset the damage done by premature speculations about American troop withdrawals last winter...

...Operations staged out of one zone frequently target in another...

...DFPLOYMENT of more American field forces to Vietnam is no sure-fire stroke...

...Moreover, it is impossible to serve as trainer to troops engaged by war without becoming a participant...

...It is top-heavy in conventional artillery which has little use in jungle warfare...

...It would not be intervention...

...What works best develops empirically out of common experience...

...Within 24 hours of General Maxwell D. Taylor's appointment as U.S...

...Oddly, national reluctance about employing it to fight anywhere has grown in proportion...

...Strategy resembles mountaineering in that "every step is a debate between what you are and what you might become...

...Ambassador to Saigon, there was a marked clearing of the atmosphere—here in America, that is, where there are neither Communist guerrillas nor viable suggestions about how to restrain them where they operate...

...If any such drastic decision were made, it would deeply shock the American people...

...The Army objection to fighting there is that it is another "bottomless pit" and a "particularly sticky brawl" not suited to the American way in warfare...

...Mobility that does not produce contact is a waste of fuel...

...The advisory role is simply not enough to tip the scale...

...So I am by no means suggesting that to beat guerrillas, it is necessary to play their game...

...But they might gradually be worked into it if encouraged by a powerful example...

...infantry line...

...It is absurd to damn him for lack of patriotism or to lament that he is not "strongly motivated...

...In Vietnam, only the obstacles to change are obvious...

...We already have combat units in Vietnam: Any other description of the crews manning the tactical airlifts and working the machine guns is a polite fiction...

...it is conceivable that bombing operations against North Vietnam might make Hanoi cut off support for the aggression to the south...

...It was built big for deterrence, which to the public means that it will sit tight...

...But who speaks out loud for a strategy that is aggressive enough to shatter the United Nations...