pamphlet dealing with plural marriage. so there is a lot more issues, some of those issues we keep hearing about in the modern day as well. fascinating to note some of the same issues people were wondering how to deal with. a lot of people felt in the later victorian era ramsey really helped create what we would consider minnesota. you can say that. i think that is fair to say, you have to be very conscious about what that means in the modern day. everything from ramsey county, a looking at his legacy through a 2014 lentz we can get a understanding of how controversy are yet compelling his legacy can be. we have to be able to address that head-on. that is important to do. >> find out where c-span's local content vehicles are going next online at c-span.org\l /localcontent. next on american history tv, author and west point history professor reg re--- professor

s focuses on the vietnam war. inability to the plans led to a battleground. this is about two hours. >> it is a pleasure to introduce our speaker tonight. serves as the head of the american history division. a west point graduate, he is veteran of both operations desert storm and iraqi freedom. "no surethor of

victory." his new book reassesses american strategy in vietnam, oxford university press 2014. it was recently selected for inclusion on the chief of staff army's professional reading list. welcome kernel -- welcome kernel data's -- welcome colonol daddis. >> thank you for the kind introduction and bob for the invitation. be here,only happy to given new york traffic, i'm also lucky to be here.

as i watched the clock tick away not only on the palisades as we were driving down from west point but also in the cap tried to get us from the hotel to hear -- hotel to here, it was a close run. what i thought i would do would be to start with something that happened in the white house last week. there was an uproar. related to the president's 10 suit, which got quite a number of remarks. more significant knee -- more significantly, it really of all around one word area that word was strategy. the president saying we do not have a strategy against isis targets in syria, causing an among hisrtainly

political opponents. i thought it would be worthwhile to spend a little bit of time talking about the word "strategy." a strategy for everything. we have an i.t. strategy, a business strategy for everything, a strategy for fantasy football league at a strategy for binge watching -- league and a strategy for binge watching netflix films. if we go back a bit and take a look at this word, i think it will serve as a foundation for the rest of our talk this evening. in 1960's it was said strategy is a loose sort of word. it is a concept that has evolved over time. our starting -- our starting -- t should be his magnum opus defines a strategy as the use for

engagement for the purpose of war. this limited conception centered on the commander's ability to shape individual campaigns and really today's lexicon it is what may be called the operational arc. in this somewhat limited -- i think it is the most popular. this sense strategy focused on the conduct of battles and its results. this is in the aftermath of a -- of napoleonic wars. this definition seems to hold at least through the 1800s. i the time we get to the end of the first world war and in its wake, there seems to be a bit of a problem with this definition. certainly a military theorist inld render severe criticism the glorification of battle as a principal element of strategy.

we have to remember he is writing in the wake of this awful war that causes millions of casualties. now there seems to be a problem with this word, at least how it is defined. his idea is to broaden it more. he defines it as the art of distributing and applying not just military means but in nations -- to a fill the end of policy. nations look more to beyond just the military means. is --ons armed force nations armed forces has to focus on allocating and coordinating its resources. for the dell heart manpower is the most precious of those four -- for --

hart manpower is the most precious of those resources. here is the grand strategy, a concept he would support. in short this focus encompasses more than just fighting power. we should focus on other instruments of power, financial, diplomatic, commercial, even ethical. all of these should be brought to bear. certainly we will talk about getting to your enemies will in the context of vietnam this evening. here strategy is more than just the pure utilization of battle. those are two competing definitions. more recently we have seen others who have looked at strategy as a relationship.

colin gray will focus on this relationship as a successful prerequisite for the prosecution of strategy. has agray will define it bridge -- the fine it as a bridge.- define it as a to and relationship certainly in a different way and an important way to think about strategy. , as matthewggests ridgway, writing in the aftermath of the korean war, thatmaintain as well, is strategy is not just purview of the military officers. in the opening of the cold war and certainly the atomic age, ridgway will speak of the need for civilian leaders to work closely, as he says,

with military authorities in setting attainable goals and selecting the means to attain them. likeinly a piece i would to highlight this evening. here we see strategy as being something more then just something uniquely preserved by military officers. consider the fact that strategy does not always work out the way we wanted to. michael howard, a british ally --n, released an released nsa saying -- released in whichsaying -- military leaders simply had to do what they could, where they could with the forces they had. is it possible military leaders exemplary rise when it comes to our? is an extended preface to my talk this evening on strategy in the vietnam era and certainly

under the 10 year of william s .oreland i promise you that will be the only acronym i use that evening -- use this evening. competinge definitions, how does the united states army define strategy as it was looking to the possibility of deploying forces to southeast asia in 1964? is the 1961 definition of strategy from the dictionary of the united states army terms, i have two take a deep rift to make sure i get it all out. this is the definition of strategy. the arc in science of develop the economic,g psychological uses of a nation during piece of war to support national policies in order to increase the probabilities of

victory and to lessen the chances of defeat. that is a useful definition, is it not? -- almostague as to too broad to be useful. war willf the vietnam shy away from this very broad definition. if there is one word that is most associated with americans strategy in vietnam, it is "attrition for co--- "attrition." a ground campaign in south vietnam was prosecuted in the 1960's. he employed a flawed strategy of attrition. concentrating at the expense of all the other missions of killing enemy soldiers. he was hypnotized by the prospects of high body counts.

failure the army to because he never realizes that the insurgency war inside south vietnam is not like the war in korea and not like the second world war. else,focused, above all in killing the enemy and does not understand there are basic requirements and changes needed for the army to successfully win the war in vietnam. these -- of this strategy argue if only he had employed another strategy and countering this insurgency, rather than the conventional threat from north vietnam, americans in fact could have achieved victory. these a field of detectors go one former superintendent of west point, a former advisor to south vietnam forrester's said his strategy of attrition was in fact an absence of strategy. others take note of this.

both thatpher of abrams immediately moved away from attrition strategy taking command in 1968. the argument goes abrams will synchronize conventional operations or increase an emphasis on securing and pacifying the population. and will manifest an enlightened and effective approach to strategy that abrams had in fact won the war by the mid-1970's. a better war fought by a better commander had in fact triumphed. i think there is a problem with these criticisms. the problem is fax. fax actually get in the way of a good story. as a historian i have a problem with that. facts should not get in the way of a story.

did not countland this as an exclusive policy of attrition and focused on killing the enemy. the word attrition, if not the word strategy, seems to have been misunderstood not just by contemporary critics that i would argue by more recent historians as well. the commander never use the word attrition solely to focus on killing the enemy. i think he used it more to express his belief that this war in vietnam could not be achieved quickly. to be one in ag matter of months or even years. was more toinition demonstrate the war was going to be long rather than demonstrate a narrow commitment through victory in battle. wes moreland's own comprehensive approach was a realistic military strategy.

and they did recognize the complex nature of the threat and effectively employ u.s. forces to compact -- to combat a threatscated enemy, both conventional and unconventional and political and military. neither have focused on counterinsurgency nor a single focus on conventional operations could have positioned american forces to reach a victory. complexitiesd beat of strategy and effectively implementing that strategy are not one in the same. also think this was a point well understood by wes moreland. we may suggest that the failure withetnam had less to do commanders choosing a correct or incorrect strategy for the ground war than it did with the inability of foreign forces to

resolve intractable problems within south vietnam's government and society. to have a good strategy and still lose a war. in the end i think the saigon government -- and this is an important part of the story that gets left out of a lot of american history. , it was the saigon government -- it was the saigon government that could fashion an idea of vietnamese nationalism that was shared and accepted by the bulk of the south vietnamese population. this is an incredibly important point to realize here. this civil war over the enemy's national identity in the modern era, there was simply some question that foreign forces could not answer. i think in uncomfortable proposition for americans in the 's might suggest that is an uncomfortable proposition for americans today.

in my opinion, based on my research, the faith and the power to reconstruct, if not create a south vietnamese political community, led to policies which never fully addressed the fundamental problem and the fundamental issue. struggle to define vietnamese nationalism and identity in the modern age. not only had political and military leaders overestimated their ability to bend north or their leaders to their will, but they also overestimated their ability to help build a political community inside south vietnam. in the aftermath of world war ii in particular, remember this is a nation that single-handedly , was tom hanksi

landing on the normandy beachhead's on d-day that single-handedly won the war for us. this is something that was difficult for americans to except in the aftermath of world war ii. most civiliannot and military leaders were uncomfortable with the capacity of the americans to reshape, if not create new political and .ocial entities over how is it possible there are limits to american power? where to begin? is withthe best place the myths. the myth goes something like this, that the americans come out of world war ii, they win the war successfully, single-handedly, and the united states army comes out of that conflict one understanding. that is conventional operations will lead to political

objectives. beis a point that seems to somewhat reinforced in the korean war. pillar of this popular narrative on american strategy thus thrust upon the contention that counterinsurgency was poorly understood by the united states army because it was wedded to the conventional concept coming out of world war ii and the korean war. the facts suggest another story. wes moreland in fact instituted mandatory counterinsurgency training for all condense. -- for all cadets. that committee found the interdisciplinary -- the interdisciplinary nature of the subject required to study political, military, economic, psychological, and social logical aspect of unconventional

warfare. cadets will study the theoretical works of mao zedong and the famous vietnamese military commanders. cadets also explored the histories of revolutionary struggles in the philippines and malaya and indochina. of command inn vietnam in 1964, wes moreland is bringing a host of theoretical study with him that was being impugned in the officer and that was being in butte in the officer and filtered through the -- being imbued in the officer and filtered through the force.

certainly in political military conflicts in which revolutionary warfare plays a role. the objective he is given is to achieve a stable and independent non-communist government in south vietnam. this is a daunting political objective. one that we may want to question if it was possible to achieve by wes moreland. a daunting objective. because of this objective wes moreland necessarily has to all-encompassing strategic concept that sox not only to destroy the enemy forces but to counter local insurgency inside south vietnam and also more importantly to expand the percentage of south vietnamese population under saigon

government's control. they question the capacity of american's to do that. he outlines his concept of .perations wes moreland realizes this is a war that is going to be fought among the population. it is political because the ultimate role is to regain the loyalty and cooperation of the conditionsto create for people to go about their normal lives in peace and security.

we might question the capacity of his forces to achieve the ultimate goal of regaining loyalty of the local population. so he seems to have understood the importance of trying to relate military power to political purpose. i think this is arguably the most difficult tasks for military commander, not just those serving in vietnam. certainly he used the word attrition. he used it in back channel messages to the white house and pentagon. used it it was in the context of talking about a long war. certainly the threat and mission required a broad concept of operations and simple words like

attrition cannot fully characterize this war he is trying to prosecute. messages theyhis suggest a general that is less focused on killing or a trading , especially those who are directing the war effort. this conflict in vietnam is not going to become clued in a swift manner. attrition underlined the problem of fighting a prolonged war. the premise behind whatever further actions we may undertake must be that we are in for the long pole. this struggle has become a war of attrition. i see no likelihood in achieving a quick favorable end to this war.

having realized this is going to be a long war, realizing he has a daunting purpose in front of him, he now has to craft a tocept of operations implement his military forces and direct his military forces in achieving this political objective. as his chief intelligence officer will later recall, he had not one but three battles to fight. first to contain the growing conventional threat. this is at least how the americans thought about it. the american standpoint, first to contain a growing conventional threat. we need to understand that by there aree 1964

already regular army units that are infiltrating into south vietnam. most famously infiltrating along the ho chi minh trail. moreland has to develop the republican of vietnam's armed forces. focusly does he have to on the enemy's main force units but he has to focus on building and developing the local forces. not only to combat conventional threats but also the insurgent threat from the national , pejorativelynt known as the viet cong war. stool is leg of this to pacify and protect the peasants of south vietnamese countryside. this is a lot on his plate. in summer of 1965 he publishes what will be known as his

three-phase concept of operations. he visualizes the commitment of u.s. and allied forces necessary to halt the losing trend by 1965. remember that by early 1965 and by the spring of 1965 there is a realization that if the united states is not committing ground forces to vietnam that saigon government is going to fall. his first step is to halt losing trend. of -- heall it in some could call it a firebrick rate strategy. -- task will include mick include securing major military bases. first he has to stabilize the situation before anything else, not just militarily but also politically. wes moreland sought to resume

the offenses, not just to destroy enemy and forces -- enemy forces but to reinstitute for rural construction activities. american forces would participate in clearing, securing, reserve reaction, and offensive operations required to sustain and support pacification. these military offensive operations are not and should not be seen as an end unto themselves. they are a step in a larger whole. campaigner whole is a to achieve political stability and create linkages between the local population and saigon. he would oversee the defeat and distraction of remaining enemy

forces inside south vietnam and their base areas. of course where are the north vietnamese base areas? most importantly of those being in cambodia and laos. note that hist to official report on the war, as he is outlining this campaign plan includes the term sustained campaign. i would ask you to think about this word attrition. this will be a sustained long struggle. the general is under no illusion that u.s. forces were engaged in a war of annihilation, aimed at the rapid destruction of the enemy. there were no napoleonic battles to be found here.

attrition suggested that a stable south vietnam capable of wrist is -- of resisting both the military and political pressure from both internal and external aggressors was not going to rise in a matter of months or even years. this sustained campaign was a multitude of subordinate military tasks and five easy explanation. attrition,t collect what hewe call you lacked was the entire united states army in the vietnam era lacked was a way to articulate rod military concepts for such a complex environment such as south vietnam. the complexity of the fighting caused immense problems with strategic to chelation. what do i call this war? what to do i call this strategy? and improvisation strategic

language left officers and her civilian leadership, if not the country as a whole, unable to intentions andir the means to achieve the political -- the political objectives at hand. the lexicon of the day was unsuited to the myriad of tasks required under wes moreland's command. terminology to describe three battles he was simultaneously fighting comes with a risk of ambiguity. the postwar survey conducted among those generals that were serving in the military systems commands concluded that 70% of army generals managing the war effort were uncertain of its objectives. 70% of the army generals

surveyed were uncertain of the objectives. i might suggest that if attrition of enemy forces, if racking up bobbing counts had been the guiding light of the american strategy on vietnam we may ask act more strategy among leaders. words like attrition remain unsatisfying in expressing the complexity of the tasks facing and their south vietnamese allies throughout the 1960's. i have laid out the political problem and the conceptual solution. what about the problems of implementation? there are many.

throughout and regardless of the time. time period american commanders found it impossible to transfer military successes into political process, a key point in understanding the american effort in vietnam. never advisor noted, we articulated our massive power and abundant resources into conjunction with vietnamese politics. i think he understood this. issuely the fundamental is the issue of coordination in mission activities in saigon. clear that ally ,olitical, military, economic and security programs must be completely integrated in order success byny kind of

prolonged conflict and is under increasing pressure by military and subversive forces. this prolonged conflict long proceeded american participation. military operations, even successful military operations, often cause the population in the countryside. therefore contradicting the very goals that americans were trying to achieve. how could you develop a sense of political stability and community when your village, your district, your profit's -- your province been ravaged by war?

despite americans military operations and pacification efforts and training the south vietnamese forces enemy recruitment in the south continues. enemy reinforcement continues from the north. some years nearly on and dated. tactical success is achieving only temporary results. you read this in memoirs and of the of officers, successful operation against the national liberation front forces and political insurgency. three to six months later the insurgency seems i could never was hit by american forces at all. i think it is important to note here that the killing of enemy

forces never served an end unto itself. to moreland always looked follow military operations, combat operations, with pacification programs. used this word pacification a few times this evening. the way pacification was identified was establishing linkages between the rural population and the government of saigon. that linkage will have been broken. a shadow paralleled government has instilled itself in that gap. liberation front had inserted itself between the rural population and the saigon government. what wes moreland was trying to achieve, given his objective, was to reestablish linkages. again a difficult task for any

foreign force. the pacification and the main war force were inseparable. they were opposite sides of the same coin prynne every -- of the same coin. every time you flipped that coin one side seems to be working against the other. i am a commander in vietnam. i have a problem with creating and maintaining momentum. it is important to note that president lyndon johnson security team is also speaking in the same language wes moreland was using. george bundy summarized his as haltinglate 1965 the enemy in fences by destroying the southern and pacifying

selected high priority areas. he says after progressively restoring the government to control wes moreland will aim to support rural construction with comprehensive retention. if the critics are right in arguing that wes moreland had been singularly committed to enemy forces, he had to his civilian leadership. i don't think that was the case. want, they are pretty intelligent folks. theink they will understand problems of relating and translating military success into political progress. we can talk in the question-and-answer period of a

controversial figure. note is wesnt to moreland would have been out of step with contemporaries -- contemporary theories on all he didrgency if was focus on killing the enemies. the army doctor began with the assumption that security proceeded all other military and political operations. if you look at -- commanders and doctrine all speak of the of security to political populations so stability can take hold. only in a secure environment can pacification flourish, a point that was well understood by the

united states army at the time. when you look at his 1965 concept of the operations, it dutifully follows the doctors prescriptions. in order to defeat the insurgency in south vietnam the people must be provided security secure thes, to country from large well-equipped units, including those from outside the country. securityation required from the gorilla, the assassin, the terrorist, and the informer. will use ad description to get at this. he will describe south vietnam as a house. house is not a stable done -- stable one.

east termites are slowly eating away at the foundation of this house. the nationals are liberation front and southern insurgency. standing off to the side are what miss -- are what wes more than calls the bully boys. these are rough and ready soldiers wear at any given eyent -- if they take their off the bully boys they will rush in with their crowbars and start tearing down the house. a wes moreland will say in his memoirs that he can ignore neither one of these. if i do so i do it at my peril.

instability is an important part of this equation. so our desertions and arm corruptions in the south vietnamese army. by 1966 and 1967 in particular you see frustration bubbling up from the american officer corps, as well as civilian leaders. any effectiveness could impose constancy on saigon's

leadership. enforce south vietnamese armed forces nor the population to view the central government in saigon as the entity thatimate could combat the insurgent threat. by 1967, clearly both sides and recent scholarship that focuses on the north vietnamese effort comes to this conclusion, that annoyhe americans and leadership are concerned it has entered into a prolonged stalemate.

it would lead to the tet offensive of 1968. this is unfortunately preceded by a campaign pursued by the johnson white house where wes moreland was brought home a number of times to report on the progress of the war. he will dutifully fall the president's wishes, he will qualify as best as he can. clearly the message took hold at 1967. when a nationwide offensive wreaks havoc across south in early february of 1968, they are failed expectations across the board. those failed expectations swiftly lead it to the conviction that wes moreland's has that wes moreland somehow

presided over a flawed strategy. not only had the president to,ded that he was going not going to run for reelection but more importantly there was a problem with public support. walter cronkite would most famously go on television and question the war effort and johnson would say if i have lost walter cronkite i have lost middle america and thus lost the war. expectations -- as the war proceeded and ended, will turn on wes moreland himself. they will focus on a trip -- they will say his focus on attrition blinded him. here's the phrase we hear over and over again, if only.

if only he had developed and implemented a better strategy focusing on counterinsurgency and less on enemy forces americans would have been better placed to achieve victory. if only wes moreland had fought a better war the united states would not have fought -- not have lost the war. and if only these arguments will proliferate after the war. military had been allowed to widen the scope of the military war. only the public support had remained strong. only a resolute civilian leadership had been willing to see the war through. among military critics in particular, the notion of a failed strategy remained at the heart of the arguments why the

united states lost in vietnam. i think the simplistic and mistaken concepts have dominated most narratives of the vietnam war, especially american centric histories. we have reduced it to where we can no longer reduce it. moreland's strategic equation was described as mobility plus firepower equals attrition. we could not ask to simplify strategy anymore. for the most complex of wars, we can boil it all down to a one plus one equals two equation. he never employed a counterinsurgency strategy. if in the complexity of this which was waged inside

south vietnam and also across south east asia and also in the larger context of the cold war, summarizing his campaign seemsgy in one word fraught with imprecision at best and prepare occasion at worst. that the united states failed in vietnam does not necessarily prove that wes moreland implemented a flawed strategy. think you can have a good strategy and still lose a war. these campaign plans in the overarching military strategy of i thinkey are based, they included an inclusive set of concepts that focused on combating and the feeding an enemy. we cannot forget this is war.

the story of vietnam is a political war as it is a military war. this is where i would like to end up this evening. policymakers were asking too much of their military strategists. in the end vietnam was a civil war among vietnamese. the foundation on which american forces waged to struggle involving the construction of an effective host government and

the destruction of a committed communist nationalist enemy proved too fragile. officers found that nationbuilding in a time of war was one of the most difficult tasks to ask of any military force. american faith and the power to aconstruct, if not create southeast the enemies political community lead to policies that did not address the fundamental issue. the internal confit -- internal come to a define and consensus of vietnamese nationalism and identity in the modern age. i think if there is perspective to be gained of this long american experience in southeast asia, it arguably lies here. is icomfortable as it

think this is true, not all problems can be solved by military force. even when that force is combined with political, economic, and social efforts. the capacity to reshape new political and social communities may not in fact be limitless. i would like to end with matthew , who is a commander for united nations forces in the korean war. he is writing of those while the vietnam war is still raging. in setting foreign-policy policymakers need to look to define those policy to makees with care and

sure they lie within the range of our vital national interests and their accomplishment is within our capabilities. for those seeking to understand the disappointments of american military strategy during the vietnam war, ridgway's council seems like a useful story. thank you for your attention. [applause] >> in your studies, were you able to find evidence of how the flow of supplies and manpower and the north to the south how the organization of the north policy was addressed by

or campaign by wes moreland whoever was directing our campaign? concern.a constant and it was a concern even before wes moreland arrives in 1963 as a deputy commander. american military commanders -- if there is a constant of american military commanders in vietnam it is they are continuously asking the national command authority to expand the war beyond south vietnam's borders. they argue it is not looking at the vietnam war in the countries of south vietnam, we need to look at the war more comprehensively. the main auto re-used to supply the south. i know he is concerned around his tenure in south vietnam.

this leads to a problem of treating enemy forces. to make sure we realize there are portions of the enemy, it made sense. in the mosaic of south vietnam, where different provinces and districts look different from one another, where the rope -- where the war is unfolding at different rates come in some areas attrition of enemy forces makes sense. where north vietnamese regular army units and regiments as late 1964 are answering into south vietnam, wes moreland feels like he has to combat that. that is why we see the famous

battles. he is concerned about the supplies and enemy reinforces coming through the ho chi minh trail and into south vietnam. he is worried about these north vietnamese regiments actually cutting south vietnam in half. is why the campaign unfolds as it does and that is why we see mel gibson landing his helicopter in the valley. clearly he is concerned about this throughout. is one of political decisions made of limiting the war. johnson is concerned about this war escalating into something larger than it should be. johnson is deeply concerned

about this war, exploding into something more than a limited war. he is certainly looking back on the american experience in korea and how the chinese were involved. i think that is on his mind when to limitthe decision combat operations inside south vietnam. within that is the continuing sick gush and continuing concern is theupplies -- continuing concern about supplies. >> thank you very much for a great talk and illuminating on some points. have a couple of devils advocate points, looking at the things you said tonight. coming from a corporate background, the fact that you

said 80% of the officer corps wasn't certain what the strategy was a majorhat issue. you cannot expect everyone to pull in that direction. it is a complex situation. -- it is not aph guided strategy. military operations with no strategical -- strategic goal has always been a problem. everybody reads about the germans in the russian campaign and they had great operational victories that let nowhere. part of the strategy is knowing -- usingt strategic or your operations to get strategic benefits. -- now it isnt is

such a long question that i have forgotten. i apologize. >> if i could speak to both of those. they're good points. certainly if there is a point of has a problem with strategic articulation and never resolves that problem successfully. what adds to that problem is this mosaic concept, the commanders that are operating are fighting a completely different war than those commanders that are fighting in the mekong delta. for those army units fighting in the central highlands away from is aopulation center, it completely different war than those army units fighting south of saigon in the populated region of the make on delta,

where there are very few conventional north vietnamese forces but there is a whole host of the enemies in the national liberation insurgents. he can't just lay down a guided strategy for one-size-fits-all. i think that is the problem. i think your point is worthwhile. he is never able to successfully articulate this mosaic war to not only his commanders but also to the domestic homefront as well. about military operations with no political goals, i would just ask you to think about the

possibility that there is a political goal. there certainly is a political goal. our are wrote about how they have a deep discussion about whether american military forces could achieve that. was a dialogue between civilian and military leaders, and that the dialogue has to be brutally honest not only when setting or political objectives, but perhaps just as importantly when talking about the capacity to achieve those objectives. >> thank you for the excellent presentation. this follows up on your last answer. other tactics that were

--ilable to the americans inkblots, things like that -- if you want to address the issue of what alternatives there were both tactically and strategically that other people at the pentagon and in the government were advancing. since you mentioned crew lack, i will focus on the marines. -- the key argument that comes wasof vietnam is that there a better way and that the marine corps found a better way. it was known as the combined action program, the combined action platoon's. groups of young marines that were sent out into the villages. they lived in and among the population. they worked with popular forces, the local militia forces, and the argument goes that if wes moreland had followed the marines leave, that the war would have unfolded differently.

the problem with that argument is even the marines didn't follow that alternative. when you look at the marine combined action program -- this trying your point about to relate military operations to the political goal -- the marines were operating in the northernmost provinces of south vietnam. the threat was north vietnamese army regiments. ultimately, less than 2% of the united states marine corps in vietnam was actually implementing the combined action program. i would argue that this is a bit of a false alternative. even the marines who thought they had a better way, they didn't. less than 2% of their operations were focused on these programs in large part because crew lack and others quite simply could not ignore the bully boys. aternatively, when you look

the back message traffic between wes moreland and the marines, there is not as much difference in the language that they are using in terms of securing the population, of trying to balance military operations and pacification efforts. most of us are older than you are. did you ever get a chance to meet westmoreland? end of hisat the life, he came up to west point. >> i had seen him speak once after he retired. one of the things that struck me was he certainly looked the part , if you were casting for a 1960's four-star general. remember this is "time" man ofon the year. he is lauded as one of the best and the brightest.

he attended harvard's management school. then't think he is quite modern major general, if you will, that some of us would think. >> [indiscernible] dohow much control westmoreland -- did westmoreland have over the bombing of the north versus the restrictions? >> none. that is the other thing that is important. much of my discussion tonight focused on the ground war inside waron, but there is an air over south vietnam, which is not -- only tangentially under the responsibility of westmoreland. he is occasionally asked his opinion about the north. he has no control over the navy. he has relatively little control over the south vietnamese

forces. again, this is more an advisory role for the americans than it is a full-blown command. the reason that the decision is made not to officially put south vietnamese forces under american control is to work against north vietnamese propaganda, which throughout the war was calling the south vietnamese army the puppet army. the last thing that westmoreland wanted to do was to officially put south vietnamese forces underneath american operational control and thus lead to that propaganda. that's an important point. there are many wars over south vietnam and southeast asia occurring simultaneously. has the mosteland important piece of that war, he is not in control of all of them.

>> i would ask you to address what is today the great irony, that america has won in vietnam. vietnam is a stable, capitalist country where even the chinese minority, always economically precocious, is protected, and it is wildly friendly to the united states, not only the government, but through all sectors of the population. we won. how did that happen? the westmoreland strategy didn't work. what did work? [laughter] >> what worked afterwards? i don't know if i can unravel all of that. i think what i might suggest here -- you bring up an important point -- one of the

elements of strategy we don't often talk about that we should spend a bit of time talking about is time. not only should we have honest discussions about what military force can achieve in terms of political objectives, but how long will it take for those political objectives to be resolved or achieved? element of time is incredibly important part of strategy. in terms of where we got to where we got, i think it has a lot to do with how the cold war unfolded after 1975. it had to do with local relationships between china and vietnam and cambodia. i think it had to do with the globalization we saw take hold 1990's.ate 1980's and clearly it had to do

with the economic piece of our foreign policy. in one sense, you can make the that at least the way we define victory may not have come out exactly the way we wanted it, but this coming summer, i will be taking a group of west point cadets to vietnam for the first time. that does say something, doesn't it? >> i wonder if you could comment briefly on how the difficulties in understanding what was happening in vietnam that you talked about related to the difficulties of westmoreland refining the strategy during his tenure. >> that is a great question. one of the reasons why i wrote " " was toeland's war answer that question.

there were no easy metrics for evaluating how you are progressing. unlike world war ii where you land on the normandy beach heads , and then at the end of june, you are here, july, you are here, and then you take paris, and then you are at the franco-german border. everybody understands by using geography as a scorecard how well the war is winning. a war without front lines like vietnam, how well do you know you are winning? how do you know if your strategy is working? that is another important part of the implementation of this strategy. not only is westmoreland dealing with the number of different wars occurring simultaneously throughout south vietnam, southeast asia, but he also has to get ale ability true understanding of how well the war is progressing and how effective the united states armed forces are doing in terms of achieving those political

objectives. that is incredibly frustrating for not only westmoreland but for subordinate military commanders. how do i assess the loyalty of the local cash -- population pacification is all about creating linkages between the world and the saigon government? if i don't know how to assess the political loyalty of a population, and i don't understand their language or culture, how do i do that? i mentioned earlier the of expanding control over the population. how do i measure control? how does a foreign force measure local governmental control over its population? i don't think the americans ever figured that out. part of the problem with the implementation of strategy is if you don't know how effective it has been because the metrics don't seem to be making sense, then you can't make the best

adjustments midstride that you should be able to make. i think that is a problem that really the devil's not only westmoreland, but abrams as well. i think it hasn't worked organ that there are visible scorecards for how well the war is going -- i think it is important that there are visible scorecards for how well the war is going. >> american public opinion was the most important thing in deciding victory or defeat. it is telling that it was not there. >> i'm sorry. there you are. especially if you are thinking in terms of, this is going to take years, maybe decades, and this is not something that democracies are not good. it is sustaining thousands and thousands of casualties year after year. >> some of these quotations i pulled out from westmoreland -- when he is using the words along

pole, he is talking about that in the context of public opinion. especially in 1967 when journalists are using words like quagmire and stalemate and unwinnable, westmoreland in back channel messages is always talking about public opinion as one of these key elements of strategy. principal, time a but clearly, public opinion is, as well. you see that clearly laid out in the back channel messages between westmoreland and the pentagon and the white house. again, this definition of attrition is one that is less focused on attrition of enemy forces and more about political attrition at home, the attrition of the popular opinion and popular will at home. that is clearly a concern to westmoreland much earlier than

1967, but by 1967, it is at the forefront of his mind. the strategybout not being attrition. attrition is never a strategy. it is a tactic. you don't mention tactics at all. you don't mention grand strategy. the grand strategy was the goals of a stable, independent, and non-communist. we won the war on those things. in terms of a grand strategy and how we could have won the war much earlier perhaps when ho chi minh was making offers to us to 1954, we could've gotten that back then without a war. >> i think that is a good point. i do mention this and r" as ireland's wa

outline a similar approach to strategy. i think there are two different levels of strategy, grand strategy, in the purview of policymakers -- those are the ones that set the political objectives -- and then a subordinate military strategy aimed at achieving those political objectives. , hisly, westmoreland purview lies more in the realm of military strategy and grand strategy. that grand strategy, we have to take a look within the larger construct of the cold war. mcnamara and george are also others looking at grand strategy globally from a european standpoint, from a southeast asian standpoint, from a chinese standpoint, and that grand

strategic concept will change over time, as well. from the perspective of grand 1965,gy, south vietnam in which seems to be so he sent you to american national security, is not the south vietnam that is so important to national security in 1970. south vietnam in 1970 does not matter as much to president nixon and henry kissinger as it does to lyndon b. johnson in 1965. -- you want toht bring in the whole mccarthy, anti-communist political situation in the united states. --i think johnson in 1965 mccarthyism has died out a little bit by the time you get to the early 1960's, but certainly communism and the fear of the domino effect, which is articulated by eisenhower

-- i think it is on johnson's mind. he does not want to lose south vietnam like truman lost china. to lose,a was truman's but clearly, johnson is thinking along those terms when he is devising his grand strategy. sir, you started off saying you can have a grand strategy but still lose a war. in the context of our current situations in iraq and i can attest -- and afghanistan, does that situation hold true? >> this is where i'm obligated to say that what i'm about to say is not representative of the department of defense. -- ily, i think we've don't think we -- there's any

doubt that we have struggled about relating military effectiveness to politics. there is a debate among scholars about the effectiveness as an andple of the surge in iraq whether that was militarily successful or politically successful. even today, it is to have a comprehensive strategy that takes into account local conditions, local politics , that takes into account regional issues, and still not be able to translate american military power into political objectives. i don't think there is any question over the course of the last 10 years that we are still struggling with that. i don't think we should be surprised by that. i think that is the general problem of war. wills,is a contest of

and if war is an instrument of policy, then we shouldn't be surprised that the crux of war, the crux of strategy is successfully translating military power into something --itical to make more useful war useful. i think it is some in worthwhile for all of us -- something worthwhile for all of us to think about. >> i think you were a wonderful, compelling speaker. i'm going to ask you something that has probably been asked a million times. maybe by today's standards it is a comic book question -- >> who is better, superman or batman? [laughter] >> even godzilla. what if we just nuked hanoi? what if we nuked ho chi minh?

cut the head off the snake, and the body will die. we nuke them and the war ends. don't you think? besides the moral and ethical implications -- [laughter] i think the issue is one of proportionality. we always have to ask ourselves, at what cost does victory come? clearly, the use of atomic weaponry is debated in 1954 when are on the verge of losing. there was an argument that we could use tactical nuclear forces to save the french, and eisenhower makes the correct decision not to go down that road. generally, i think it is

worth thinking about the problem of proportionality. was an independent, non-communist vietnam worth that cost? i don't think it was. , if only weat argue were able to expand the war, if only we were able to put more of i thinktary effort in, we could have won the war. i don't know if i subscribe to the unwinnable war thesis. clearly, we could have one, but it would've come to a tremendous cost to the vietnamese population. they already suffered horrendous casualties. for a war that has been so scarring to our nation, it pales in comparison to the impact it had on vietnam, and not just the american war, but the french war, this long conflict that preceded american forces arriving in vietnam.

i would suggest that another important portion of strategy is thinking about proportionality. i think the use of our nuclear arsenal in the 1960's might've overstepped that boundary. >> and wondering if the real lesson of vietnam was that all politics are local. domestic enemies are the ones that count. we can go from vietnam to iraq and afghanistan, libya and ukraine. we don't seem to appreciate that. where is the responsibility? work, them hussein

shia came to power and turned on the sunnis. obviously, they are a kind of enemy. where is the responsibility on the part of military advisers to implementan advisers that all politics are local? >> it is a key responsibility for military officers. that is why i do like hall and gray's- colin definition. i think that honest dialogue is so important. at least in the context of vietnam, you do see american officers, not just westmoreland -- clearly the advisory corps that is operating with the province chiefs and district chiefs -- they are all talking about the importance of the south vietnamese winning their own war and conflict.

i think it's an important point. again, that is why i like the dialogue. as i mentioned at the end of my talk, i think we probably overestimated it. tooverestimated our capacity influence local politics, to this question about , thenal identity relationship between an individual vietnamese and his or her government. we overestimated our capacity to answer those questions. >> interesting use of the word attrition in terms of the misinterpretation of westmoreland's strategy, given the recent scholarship that has come out that that was the north's strategy and that they did truly intend to fight. what do you think of the theory

360 despite westmoreland's degree strategy, he was outlasted by an enemy that used attrition against his own attrition? >> the enemy always has a vote, doesn't he? recent scholarship and probably -- the professor at the university of kentucky wrote a wonderful book that the strategy -- he is , buting a war of attrition also, on numerous occasions, trying to win the war militarily, from a general offensive and general uprising. he tries it in 1964. he tries it most famously in 1968 with the tet offensive. successfully in 1975 after the

.ithdrawal of american forces i think that is an important point to realize, that if critics who argue that westmoreland -- there are those that argue that westmoreland should have focused more on counterinsurgency. the problem with that is that is not how the enemy was fighting. the enemy was sending large military main force units into south vietnam in hopes of politicalthe objective of winning the war through military means in short order. as an example, in the aftermath of both john ted kennedy -- john f. kennedy's death, he sees an opportunity to try to potentially win the were before -- the war before the american'' war takes hold. that throughsee

the infiltration of north vietnamese army unit. recent scholarship suggests that westmoreland was right, he couldn't ignore them. if the enemy couldn't win the war through direct battle and a general uprising, he would try to do it through attrition. all, i have to disagree with my colleagues. we did not win in vietnam. --you look at cam patio cambodia and laos, they have the potential to be like what south korea's today. poverty and death multiplied many times. as far as the issue about nationalism, nationalism was the only mode we could use, as we

must do in iraq and afghanistan, to defeat islam and communism. we have to do something to counter those religions. they were very powerful. i just looked at a film by go dark. france abouting in the war.ration for it is extremely difficult to go against a powerful religion like communism and islam. as you said, we should've highlighted -- we should've promoted nationalism. it is the only counter. i cannot see any other way of doing it. >> i think that brings up an important question for any strategist, either civilian or military. how do you fight a revolutionary war of ideas?

you have implied that the united states won world war ii. stanton and iby were in company a, first battalion in 1974. wrote several books on vietnam. in 1976, we did an article. battle in the summer of 1941. basically, when barbarossa was defeated. this time, the soviets were losing 10,000, 60,000 killed per day before we even entered world war ii. >> the problem is in the cold war we can't acknowledge -- we have to say we won the war. >> you have implied that several times that we won the war. it is true that we were the winners.

>> i'm sorry. perhaps you misunderstood. this backn't we learn in the second world war? was it our arrogance or ignorance that got us into the same mess in vietnam? and might be more generous say it was less arrogance and just a faith and power to build societies. i think we need to put this in the context of the 1960's where social sciences are really taking hold, where modernization theory is really taking hold. if you look at the language that and thosennedy uses who are in the national security faith inment, there is american power to build nations

abroad. i think it's less arrogance and and ance and more a faith democratic, capitalist power. just when you look at , weumerism as one index want to believe john f. kennedy when he says, we can go out and do all of these wonderful instrument -- wonderful things. there is social science that seems to back that rhetoric up. if we have military officers who have fought against totalitarianism, against fascism in world war ii, and done so fought in the korean war and notches contained but rolled back communism in the mid-1950's, i think that faith

in american power, which may seem a bit arrogant now, when you put it in the context of the it may not be as unreasonable as it seems on its face. in the midst of the vietnam war, ho chi minh was pushed out by aner literally e man.sively in 1975, we left vietnam. as far as i know, he was in power. one would assume that vietnam would have pursued that agenda of world domination. it didn't turn out that way. it turned out that it went the way dave gordon describes it.

what happened between then and now? >> part of the problem i think is that lays long rebalancing their own requirements. we need to realize that after the bifurcation of vietnam in 1954 where there are two entities, south and north vietnam, that and north vietnam leaders are making decisions about supporting the insurgency in the south to reunify the country in the aftermath of a long and bloody colonial conflict or anti-colonial conflict, and also build their own stable nation in the north. that they'reate having to constantly make choices between the building of

a stable political community in the north and feeding and reinforcing the southern insurgency in the south. in the aftermath of the american war in 1975, that takes on a regional aspect. they now not only have to balance the powers of reintegrating southerners into vietnam, some southerners who butously fought communists, they also now have to deal with a very unstable cambodia and have to deal with a china that is increasingly aggressive. for not as easy, i think, the high noise politburo coming out of the american phase of the vietnam war to simply call it success and move on. he died in 1986. that was the turning went. -- turning point.

people who came after him said, communism doesn't work. it didn't work in china. >> i want to get back to strategy and tactics. the french were able to hold the entire indochinese peninsula with about 200,000 troops. we had a half a million troops, and westmoreland wanted to hundred thousand more, if i'm brought upon which the resin nation of the president -- the resignation of the president. didn't we learn anything from the french? >> we did. i might suggest that the phrase that the french held indochina with that many troops might

perhaps not be accurate, that the french will hold certain areas, and those areas are urban areas, but the problem is i don't think they held a country. they held very small portions of the country. that would become a problem for them as they are trying to execute their own strategy fighting the french indochina war. what i find fascinating, and certainly the americans will look back on the french experience in indochina, the british experience in malaya, the french experience in algeria, and i think what they find is a difficulty of coming to a consensus over what the term control means. i think that is what you are getting at with whether the french held or controlled areas of indochina while they were still a colonial power. i think that is a key problem for the americans.

despite the experiences of the to findit is difficult and assess how well you are controlling a portion of that political community, especially when there is a shadow government that is parallel to the supposedly legitimate government and competing for not just resources but the loyalty of the population. i don't think that piece of the definition of control was ever fully determined by the americans. >> and early 1968, i was at fort jackson. obviously, you heard every day the cadre in the mass talking about the restraints. lbj.cursed one of the morse -- the most

important restraints he was under was that of incremental buildup that johnson put him through in the administration. own an observation of my having fought in vietnam in 1969 was that the only thing i saw later on was that the war really worked, it scared the north vietnamese. >> that's an important point that clearly westmoreland is doing with the theory of graduated pressure, which kind of takes hold and the national security establishment, this that we can determine how much pressure to ratchet up or ratchet back.

will realizeanoi it can win this long war. we have the ability to ratchet up or ratchet back. unfortunately, we don't have that ability. we don't have the ability to so neatly determine the pace of the war, the pace of military operations, or determine the pace of how quickly the local population is seeing the south vietnamese government as a legion that sentiment -- a legitimate entity. it connects this theory of graduated pressure. as we talked about earlier, there is a difference between articulating strategy and implementing it. this is a clear case of that. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014]