The Tragedy and Lessons of Conflating Munich with Vietnam, and Now the Middle East
By Mona
As I had written several weeks ago, I’ve been reading former Kennedy/LBJ SecDef Robert S. McNamara’s 1995 book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. Therein, McNamara distills to 11 the causes and lessons that pertain to the bloody debacle — foreign and domestic — vis-a-vis Vietnam. What McNamara wrote of over a decade ago, yet many years after our Vietnam horror, seems to me to constitute a fuller statement of the Henley Doctrine that “Hayek does not stop at the water’s edge.” All emphasis is mine:
- We misjudged then — and we have since — the geopolitical intentions of our adversaries … and we exaggerated the dangers to the United States of their actions.
- We viewed the people and leaders of South Vietnam in terms of our own experience. We saw in them a thirst for – and a determination to fight for — freedom and democracy. We totally misjudged the political forces within the country.
- We underestimated the power of nationalism to motivate a people to fight and die for their beliefs and values….
- Our misjudgments of friend and foe alike reflected our profound ignorance of the history, culture, and politics of the people in the area, and the personalities and habits of their leaders….No Southeast Asian [experts] existed for senior officials to consult when making decisions on Vietnam.
- We failed then — and have since — to recognize the limitations of modern, high-technology military equipment, forces and doctrine in confronting unconventional, highly motivated people’s movements. We failed as well to adapt our military tactics to …winning the hearts and minds of people from a totally different culture.
- We failed to draw Congress and the American people into a full and frank discussion and debate of the pros and cons of a large-scale military involvement … before we initiated the action.
- After the action got under way and unanticipated events forced us off our planned course … we did not fully explain what was happening and why we were doing what we did….We had not prepared the public to understand the complex events we faced…confront[ing] uncharted seas and an alien environment. A nation’s deepest strength lies not in its military prowess, bur rather in the unity of its people. We failed to maintain it.
- We did not recognize that neither our people nor our leaders are omniscient. Our judgment of what is in another people’s or country’s best interest should be put to the test of open discussion in international forums. We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose.
- We did not hold to the principle that U.S. military action — other than in response to direct threats to our own national security – should be carried out only in conjunction with multinational forces supported fully (and not merely cosmetically) by the international community.
- We failed to recognize that in international affairs, as in other aspects of life, there may be problems for which there are no immediate solutions … At times, we may have to live with an imperfect, untidy world.
- …We thus failed to analyze and debate our actions in Southeast Asia – our objectives, the risks and costs of alternative ways of dealing with them, and the necessity of changing course when failure was clear….
In January of 2004, McNamara was interviewed for the first time regarding his views of the Iraq war. The aging but mentally agile gentleman unqualifiedly declared: “It’s just wrong what we’re doing. It’s morally wrong, it’s politically wrong, it’s economically wrong.” The reporter makes reference to the 11 lessons reproduced above and states, my emphasis:
I have always been wary of comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq. The circumstances are profoundly different, and the scale of conflict and death is nowhere near the same. Vietnam was a small nation engaged in a civil war that Americans misread as a Chinese incursion on all of Asia, while Iraq has been strangled by one of history’s worst totalitarian dictators. The American mistake was its belief that the dictator’s removal would be sufficient.But to read Mr. McNamara’s 1995 list today is to read an uncanny analysis of the missteps of the Iraq campaign. He told me that this list has come to haunt him as he watches the Mesopotamian misadventure unfold….
I do believe Mr. McNamara when he says that the Kennedy taste for international co-operation would have served the world better than the White House’s current with-us-or-against-us approach.
“I don’t believe that Kennedy would be reacting the way Bush is. For one thing, Kennedy reached out. A critic in those early days of the administration was John Kenneth Galbraith [the Canadian economist, who believed Vietnam was a bad idea]. And Kennedy reached out, and appointed him to a high-level position, and he talked to him about Vietnam. You don’t see that today.”
In his book, McNamara almost pleads with his readership to understand that he and many in the Kennedy/LBJ Administration had served in WWII and had been strongly impressed by the lessons of Munich, and tended to see anything pertaining to Communism, including any manifestation of it in Southeast Asia, in those terms. He came to believe, certainly by the time he wrote In Retrospect, that choosing that prism had been an understandable but gross error.
It was, and is, and is among the reasons why Vietnam — and not WWII, Munich, Churchill and an endless parade of Middle Eastern Hitlers — is by far more apposite to the disaster unfolding today in Mesopotamia. McNamara et al. at least had an excuse, having been forged in the fear and hell of WWII — those absurdly ranting about Munichs, the Hitler du jour and Nazis today, those screamers have no excuse.
The model here is Vietnam. McNamara says we should have gotten out of Southeast Asia as early as 1963, by which time it was beyond reasonable dispute that South Vietnam could not maintain a stable government and was rife with internal dissent. We did not leave for another decade, however, and so there are many, many thousands more names on that Wall. And we are making the very same mistake again, led by a Republican Party and neocon movement who have learned nothing, and do not understand that Hayek indeed does not stop at the water’s edge, if they grasp Hayek’s truths at all.
Comment by Jonathan Goff —
May 19, 2007 @ 2:00 pm
Thanks Jim, and thanks for the link to that older post. They really do put to words the way I’ve always felt about the dangers of interventionism, and yet the reason why some libertarians don’t seem to get it. We really are all moralists on some level, but we sometimes weigh the evils differently.
~Jon
Comment by Mona —
May 19, 2007 @ 2:08 pm
Jon, I’m flattered you think that is a Henley-quality post, but I wrote it (see by-line). His Henley Doctrine just had to be included — cuz, yanno, it has this right-as-in-correct thingie going on — and ought to be disseminated far and wide.
Comment by lemuel pitkin —
May 19, 2007 @ 2:59 pm
You could even go a step farther — Hayek applies much better to foreign policy than to domestic policy. When democratic (or even most non-democratic)governemtns act at home, they’re subject to allsorts of constraints, chllenges, pressure, etc. from the people directly affected. A well-functioning political system aggregates diffuse local knowledge like a market does (better in some cases, worse in others). At home, governments have legitimacy, not just force, at their disposal.
But abroad? Something like Iraq really does fit the libertarian nightmare vision of the state pretty exactly.
Comment by Lawrence Krubner —
May 19, 2007 @ 3:10 pm
“led by a Republican Party and neocon movement who have learned nothing, and do not understand that Hayek indeed does not stop at the water’s edge, if they grasp Hayek’s truths at all.”
While this is a great post, these few concluding sentiments must have been written in a fit of nostalgia. The current Republican party is simply not the same party that once revered Hayek’s truths. For the sake of accurate branding, they should probably rename the party, though of course they won’t. But we all need to stop writing stuff like “The GOP is forgetting Hayek’s truths!” I don’t think James Dobson gives a damn about Hayek. I don’t think Karl Rove gives a damn about Hayek. I don’t think Bill O’Reilly gives a damn about Hayek. The GOP simply isn’t the same party that it once it was. The folks now running the show are about as likely to quote Hayek and Friedman and Adam Smith as they are likely to quote the Koran.
Comment by Lawrence Krubner —
May 19, 2007 @ 3:12 pm
My last comment was not very clear. What I meant to say was, when dealing with the current GOP, I think we are no longer dealing with people who have simply forgotten Hayek’s truths. I think we are dealing with a crew that is likely to be active in opposing anything resembling a Hayek-inspired policy.
Comment by Jonathan Goff —
May 19, 2007 @ 3:22 pm
Mona,
You’re right. Well, I liked both of your posts.
~Jon
Comment by Mona —
May 19, 2007 @ 3:25 pm
As Lawrence Krubner writes:
In all fairnes to moi, don’t you think that comes through when I say:
Comment by Gsnorgathon —
May 19, 2007 @ 3:51 pm
“The circumstances are profoundly different…”
.
I suppose it’s an understandable error to make, but it constantly drives me crazy that so many folks fail to see that “circumstances” lie in Washington DC at least as much as they do across the water. The circumstances are not profoundly different, as McNamara’s list attests. They are depressingly similar in too many respects.
.
“…the same party that once revered Hayek’s truths.”
.
Which party was that?
Comment by Lawrence Krubner —
May 19, 2007 @ 4:17 pm
Mona, I’m sorry if I was splitting hairs. I suppose I would have preferred you to use the past tense.
Gsnorgathon:
““…the same party that once revered Hayek’s truths.â€
.
Which party was that?”
Perhaps I should have written “once pretended to revere”. The pretense is gone now.
Comment by Thoreau —
May 19, 2007 @ 4:19 pm
I feel the need to link to an oldie but goodie Hit and Run comment:
Comment by Mona —
May 19, 2007 @ 5:55 pm
Thoreau — that 2003 checklist was as excellent as it was prescient.
Comment by Thoreau —
May 19, 2007 @ 7:29 pm
Yep. Too bad the guy no longer comments at Hit and Run. I don’t know where he went.
Trackback by Particles —
May 19, 2007 @ 7:33 pm
the henley doctrine…
The Henley Doctrine…….
Comment by Jay C —
May 20, 2007 @ 1:04 pm
But to read Mr. McNamara’s 1995 list today is to read an uncanny analysis of the missteps of the Iraq campaign.
Thank you, Mona, for bringing this point up. Even though my reaction to reading this post was somewhat the same as I had reading Robert McNamara’s original – that despite the list of missteps, bad judgments and mea culpas being entirely accurate, it was about 30 years too late to be of any use: save as a guide to future policy considerations. And we see how well THAT has worked out.
However, one Vietnam/Iraq analogy that is missing, is, IMHO, perhaps the most important of all: the fact that the opponents of the Iraq invasion/occupation are having to base their opposition at a serious disadvantage to “pro-war” supporters. And pretty much for the same reasons that prevailed in the debate over Vietnam: the architects and proponents of the Iraq invasion/occupation have framed the issue (and have done so, consciously, from the beginning) in the most simplistic nationalistic terms possible (Us vs. “the terrorists”; Good vs. Evil; “spreading freedom and democracy”; “support the troops”, etc.) and tied our military involvement in Iraq to fundamental issues of “national honor” and “victory” – concepts which, in rational analysis, may or may not apply. Howver, when dealing with a country at war (we’re actually not, but it is a convenient fiction for the war-floggers to maintain) rationality almost always
comes second to emotion (just as it did in Vietnam). The main obstacle, imo, to effecting ANY changes in Iraq policy (well, aside from sheer LBJ-like bullheaded stubbornness from the Administration) is going to be changing the terms of debate away from simpleton victory-vs-defeat sloganeering and onto a truly “reality-based” plane.
Unfortunately, given the way Government works; we may indeed have to wait another 30 years before the scales drop from our eyes.
Comment by Mona —
May 20, 2007 @ 2:01 pm
I see that happening. All over.