David Fitzgerald

IRAQ AND VIETNAM

In this essay the authors survey eighteen recently published books (see list of books on p. 622) to illuminate and analyze some of the dominant issues addressed in the sub-field of Vietnam-Iraq literature: lessons and analogies, unfinished wars, the rush to war, militarism, public opinion, and the media, deception, counterinsurgency, notions of victory and exit strategies, credibility, and empire.

Afghanistan, Escalation and the ‘Good War’

Unlike the ‘dumb’ war in Iraq, Afghanistan was portrayed throughout the 2008 election campaign as the ’good’ war, providing Obama a foil to demonstrate his toughness on foreign policy. Yet, despite the optimistic assumptions among Obama administration staffers, the ‘landscape’ spoke back, and it became quickly apparent that the US strategy was not working, prompting questions over US goals in Afghanistan. The lack of US knowledge of the Afghan terrain became evident throughout the autumn 2009 debate over escalation. Internal references and reports shaped the debate and, in the absence of knowledge of Afghanistan, analogies crept in, with civilian advisors fearful of another Vietnam, while many in the military invoked the ‘successful’ counterinsurgency in Iraq as a model that could be applied in Central Asia.

Afghan ‘Good Enough’

Ultimately, Obama’s decision on escalation tried to square a circle — authorizing a rapid and large troop ‘surge’ that would be closely followed by a drawdown and withdrawal. With the US public tiring of open-ended commitments, the war in Afghanistan would now be tied to Washington’s clock. As the limitations of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan became clear, the US strategy reverted to its original aim of simply keeping the United States safe. The rise of targeted killings by drones meant that knowing the Afghan landscape outside of airborne cameras and target lists became less and less important. Mirroring the Iraq withdrawal, Obama declared that it was time to begin ‘nation-building at home; ensuring that large-scale intervention with troops would not become emblematic of Obama’s approach to intervention.

Good, Safe, Strong: Obama and the Impossible Reconciliation

The cultural narratives that have animated US foreign policy coalesce around a constellation of the US desire to feel safe, to feel good, and to feel strong. The conflation of the discourses on national security, liberal democratic internationalism, and a powerful desire to lead has frequently vitiated US foreign policy. Using the metaphor of landscape the chapter distinguishes between the US view of the world which frequently constructs an impressionistic depiction of the issues that they ‘look at’. The frame of reference locates US policy within the ‘lessons’ of Vietnam, intervention since, and comfortable paradigms written in the United States. Constrained by domestic desires and agendas, the United States does not always ‘see’ issues clearly.

Syria and the Dilemmas of Intervention

The Assad’s regimes violent response to challenges to his power and the ensuing and protracted slaughter within Syria posed a wrenching dilemma for the Obama administration. Where Libya was a ‘do-able’ operation, Syria represented a much more formidable opponent. Obama was reluctant to intervene. His administration was divided and their arguments spilt out into public discourse. US opinion was reluctant to see the US involvement in further war and intervention. Yet the casualty figures mounted rapidly. The Syrian opposition was illegible and complex. There was a danger that US aid would get into the wrong hands, bolstering al Qaeda affiliate groups. The use of chemical weapons provided a temporary distraction from the ongoing atrocities and the question of intervention was muted during the negotiations. By 2014, the ISIS advances in Iraq and their ongoing activities in Syria forced Obama to U-turn on the question of lethal assistance. He requested

Obama and Iraq: The ‘Dumb’ War

500 million for selected groups.

The Libya Exception

Obama was an ardent critic of the Bush administration’s Iraq policies. It was a key factor in his presidential bid. Obama wanted to end the ‘dumb’ war in Iraq and recoup and concentrate on rebuilding the United States, its economy, its political and social well-being. Despite the internal US logic to this position, conditions within Iraq had changed dramatically. The Maliki government was exclusive and authoritarian; al Qaeda had become a presence. Obama presided over the US withdrawal and metaphorically the nation switched off the war. If Iraq was not the center of gravity in 2003, it had become so after 2010. By 2014, ISIS directly challenged US interests by capturing key cities in the northwest of Iraq and advancing on Baghdad. Obama was forced to reconsider.

Sir Robert Thompson, Strategic Patience and Nixon’s War in Vietnam

In Libya, as in Afghanistan, the tensions between realism and idealism, along with the ghosts of past wars haunted the decision-making process. The presence of Clinton administration veterans meant that the crisis became about not repeating the mistakes of the 1990s. While the liberal interventionists urged action, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was more reluctant to use US power, unsure that it was either in the national interest or that the United States had the means to intervene effectively. In opting for a multilateral operation and by focusing on air strikes against clearly defined targets along a narrow band of desert coastal roads, the United States could uphold its principles and protect civilian populations without having to get entangled in the messiness of the Libyan political landscape.

Learning to Forget: US Army Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Practice from Vietnam to Iraq

Abstract Counter-insurgency scholars have long been familiar with Sir Robert Thompson’s classic work Defeating Communist Insurgency, which combined analysis of the insurgencies in Malaya and Vietnam with advice for counter-insurgents that emphasised the drawn-out nature of insurgency and the importance of focusing on population security. While historians have called attention to his role with the British Advisory Mission in South Vietnam and his later criticism of the US counter-insurgency campaign in Vietnam in his various books, less has been written about his subsequent role as a pacification advisor to the Nixon administration. This article explores Thompson’s relationship with Kissinger and Nixon and his views on the war in Vietnam from 1969 to 1974. An examination of Thompson’s thinking on Vietnam in the Nixon years reveals a theorist whose optimism on US prospects there was based on assumptions about elite and public patience for lengthy wars that were ultimately misplaced.