Rick Perlstein takes a look at some of the revisionist literature on Vietnam and comes away -- unsurprisingly -- unimpressed. For more on this general subject, and in particular the malign influence the right's Vietnam revisionism has exercised, see Spencer Ackerman's piece on the other Vietnam syndrome, one of the last things he did for TNR.
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Revising Revisionism
01 Oct 2007 08:55 am
Comments (10)
Conservatives would do well to pick one narrative and stick to it. The stories that Perlstein dissects often contradict each other. Conservative revisionists aren't simply arguing with prior histories, they're arguing with each other.
Yeah, what Jeffrey said. I also picked up on the resonating cognitive-dissonance in Rick Perlstein's piece: but the fact that conservative Vietnam-revisionists would approvingly cite two conflicting interpretations doesn't surprise me much at all.
The whole point of the exercise is NOT, IMO, to present any sort of objective analysis of what happened in Vietnam, but simply to bolster the standard right-wing excuse: i.e., "we would have 'won' in Vietnam if it weren't for the dirty fncking hippies and the liberal peacenik quislings!"
Dumping on "liberals" and their viewpoints is the main aim here (and, of couorse, making themselves look sage): if they have to quote wildly divergent analyses to do so: who cares?
The funny thing is that conservatives could claim that liberals got us into the conflict, which has a lot of truth to it, and then by sleight of hand try to blame Vietnam on liberal Democrats that way, but that would mean they would have to view the Vietnam War as a mistake and thus hurt their pride and make them feel less like Rambo.
the fact that conservative Vietnam-revisionists would approvingly cite two conflicting interpretations doesn't surprise me much at all.
Why not? It turns out we not only didn't lose the Vietnam War, we won it twice--once in 1960 and again in 1970. Best two out of three!
I think we can see a trend emerging in how, at least in the modern era, countries tend to deal with defeat: they construct a narrative whereby, instead of strategic errors on the part of culpable policymakers, the true responsibility for failure lies with some unpopular sub-segment of the population. For Vietnam and Iraq, it was/is the liberals–those doubting thomases whose lack of backbone has stymied our unstoppable military juggernaut. For the Germans, after World War I, it was the Jews. The “stab in the back” helped to propel the nationalist Nazis into power. It may be that in countries that mobilize a large portion of the population in support of a given military adventure, whether literally or emotionally, the public itself feels some degree of guilt over the ensuing loss and, in order to mitigate those feelings, is MORE than willing to buy into the idea that it was never really their fault; they were almost predestined for failure because of the scheming of some troubled and weak minority.
The other problem that conservative commentary on Vietnam suffers from is an almost obsessive focus on “could we” while totally ignoring the question of “should we.” In other words, they examine, in-depth, the question of military capability. Would continued bombing have neutralized the North Vietnamese threat? Would this or that tactic have finally pacified the countryside? This, of course, completely ignores the strategic question: Would a victory in Vietnam have been worth the effort? Would it have materially contributed to our eventual Cold War victory? I think the answer to that is a resounding no. In the process of achieving a victory, we would have completely undermined any remnant of ideological advantage we had; this would have given the Soviets an even greater propaganda victory then they enjoyed with our defeat.
I think Perlstein understates the military communities contribution to this revisionism. When current officers talk about "applying strategies learned during successful counter insurgency operations" they are referring to those deployed in Viet Nam. The "main stream military" meme has always been that we never lost to an insurgency, the RVN only lost to a conventional warfare attack due to losing adequate US air cover after the congressional funding cutoff. There has never been a "lessons learned" analysis by our military that worked from a "why we lost" perspective because they never acknowledged losing. Consequently there was no analysis of what was wrong with our strategic goals, which led that same military to support another misdirected strategic debacle.
I think we can see a trend emerging in how, at least in the modern era, countries tend to deal with defeat: they construct a narrative whereby, instead of strategic errors on the part of culpable policymakers, the true responsibility for failure lies with some unpopular sub-segment of the population. For Vietnam and Iraq, it was/is the liberals–those doubting thomases whose lack of backbone has stymied our unstoppable military juggernaut. For the Germans, after World War I, it was the Jews. The “stab in the back” helped to propel the nationalist Nazis into power. It may be that in countries that mobilize a large portion of the population in support of a given military adventure, whether literally or emotionally, the public itself feels some degree of guilt over the ensuing loss and, in order to mitigate those feelings, is MORE than willing to buy into the idea that it was never really their fault; they were almost predestined for failure because of the scheming of some troubled and weak minority.
The other problem that conservative commentary on Vietnam suffers from is an almost obsessive focus on “could we” while totally ignoring the question of “should we.” In other words, they examine, in-depth, the question of military capability. Would continued bombing have neutralized the North Vietnamese threat? Would this or that tactic have finally pacified the countryside? This, of course, completely ignores the strategic question: Would a victory in Vietnam have been worth the effort? Would it have materially contributed to our eventual Cold War victory? I think the answer to that is a resounding no. In the process of achieving a victory, we would have completely undermined any remnant of ideological advantage we had; this would have given the Soviets an even greater propaganda victory then they enjoyed with our defeat.
Reality Man: "by sleight of hand try to blame Vietnam on liberal Democrats that way"
Pretty much what Bob Dole tried to pull in the 1996 election with his "Democrat wars" schtick.
This, of course, completely ignores the strategic question: Would a victory in Vietnam have been worth the effort? Would it have materially contributed to our eventual Cold War victory? I think the answer to that is a resounding no.
And this in turn ignores the moral question: did we have any right to insert ourselves into the internal affairs of Vietnam? The answer to that is also a resounding "no."
Comments closed October 15, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
And, a 1, and a 2, and a 3... Cue the Scooby Doo Warhawks, to exclaim how they woulda won their battle for freedom for those dang Vietnamese (and Cambodians too!) if it hadn'ta been for those meddlin' liberals!
Posted by El_Cid | October 1, 2007 9:14 AM