February Handgrenade of the Month 2019

Interesting question. I don't think it was (or is) entirely anti-war, although it is certainly possible to have an apparently pro-war text that is profoundly anti-war (Twain's "War Prayer" comes to mind). There's also Nikias' "pro" invasion speech, a bungled attempt to persuade Athenians not to invade Sicily. I've often thought that the famous aphorism "War is the continuation of politics by other means" can be read as arguing for war as the absolute last choice.

Interesting coincidence as this post intersects with a thread on another military history list I participate in. The topic is US participation in unconventional wars - Vietnam in particular but also with some application to Afghanistan. The thrust of my initial post is that almost everything written and talked about Vietnam is to laundry list (ad nauseum) all the mistakes we made and that we should not have gone. My position in the discussion is that given the situation in the early 1960s we had no option but to be involved, it is just we are not good at such wars and didn't do it right. My position is that as the greatest nation in the world - economically for sure, we can "win" these wars. So my quest is to find not just criticism but better ideas on how to do this differently (and I have substantial numbers of my own ideas I have developed over my academic and professional careers working primarily in this area.) So to get to John Kuehn's post and the quote he provides - it struck home somewhat with me as the bottom line -whether dealing with conventional or unconventional wars, those making the decisions need to really understand up front the "kind of war on which they are embarking..." The error I think in Vietnam was that few of the decision makers had the correct understanding of the war they were starting, not many people frankly do, and many of the bad decisions came from that. It is not to say that we should not have gone (except in the context of - "either do it right or don't go at all") and I truly believe we could have "won" Vietnam and still could "win" in Afghanistan...

Regards.
Greg Banner

LTC, USA (SF) (ret.)

First thoughts:

John's takeaway that "wars of choice...really should only be undertaken to defend the state when the state deserves defense" begs several questions.

First, which state? Presumably, the state in question is the leader's own state; however, it's hard to see how by that standard anyone would ever go to the aid of an ally.

It seems to me that this would require that the ally's defense be commingled so thoroughly that any determination of a "deserved" defense would also apply to the ally on the same level as one's own state. How would that be determined? (Macedonia, any one?)

For example, following this reading the British government in 1939 should have written off Poland, unless Poland's defense was clearly commingled in Britain's . (In this case, Viscount Halifax, who would probably have done so eventually, should have been preferred to the warmongering Churchill.) But if this condition existed in 1939, why didn't it exist in 1945 after the Red Army occupied Poland? Don't know; just asking.

Also, what standard establishes 'deserves'? I can see where in some cases arguing that a nations deserves a defense is going to generate an argument even among that state's own citizens. Some anti-war activists in the 1960s might have taken (did take?) the position that the corrupt U.S. and the West generally deserved no defense, and certainly none that required their participation. How do democracies settle this?

I think another, perhaps more apt, reading of Clauswitz's intention in the quote John provides (The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish by that test the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into, something that is alien to it nature. On War, Carl von Clausewitz [Howard and Paret trans.]) can be found in the example of Anwar Sadat's actions in 1973.

Briefly, Sadat opened the 1973 war intending, as I understand it, to fight for limited military objectives that would lay the foundations for negotiations. He largely succeeded in giving the Israelis a very hard problem, until toward the end of the fighting, he allowed Egyptian forces to move out from under the SAM bubble that protected their positions on the east bank of the Suez. This was decidedly a case of trying to turn the Egyptian army into something that was alien to its nature, that is, into a ground army without air that would be the equal to Israel's army with the then freed to maneuver IAF. Bad idea. (He also rejected intel reporting the Israeli crossing to the west but that's not directly related to this point.)

In any case, I think Clausewitz here can be read less as anti-war and more as anti-don't-try-to-make-your-war-into-something-it's-not.

Clausewitz continues as these 3 thoughtful and provoking replies show, challenge and on several fronts or levels, if allowable. Not wishing to delve into philosophy particularly, but his theory of war does raise a couple of comments upon the 3 replies.

Hegle developed a philosophy that stated a circular description to truth and history as remembered off the top. His philosophy called for a thesis, giving rise to an antithesis out of which came a synthesis. Marx applied this same principle to social analysis and economics to reach his conclusions which are not the focus here.
What is this focus concerns Clausewitz, whose conclusion war is politics continued by other means. Quite circular when you consider, its opposite. Easily the conclusion can be drawn that politics is the continuation of war by other means, [albeit not violent]. But is there a synthesis ?

How does this, further apply to Vietnam, its choices then and its history since those were determined ? Do find my own agreement with Lt. Banner, the US had no choice except to get involved; ie, that choice was forced upon it by the Communists of the time in their resort to force as means of achieving their political ambitions in Vietnam. Do not agree that economic strength alone made a guarantee of success, nor that Americans misunderstood the type of war they found Vietnam to be. In fact, Americans have a considerable history and experience with guerrilla war and its conduct.

Rather would draw the conclusion, it succeeded in part and missed opportunities in part, with an outcome whose final decision was a direct result of impacts upon the politics of that historical era. Differences among Americans gave rise to another form of politics which finally led to a conclusion not expected. It is erroneous to read this history as something else.

Democracy, as Grant opines, has struggled to find in freedom for all, answers to how you conduct both politics and warfare to preserve and extend that freedom. Perhaps Churchill has something of an insight when he declared to effect, Democracy was the worst form of government until you considered all the alternatives to it. So long as politics remains committed to the goals of freedom there is a path, even thru war, to another history of factual experience which allows for the success of Democracy. Clausewitz did not have this focus except thru attempting to defeat what then was perceived as the tyranny of a Napoleonic order and rule. In this, his philosophy or theory of war may have indeed served 'freedom' as it was becoming known during his times.

Looking to the politics of the time might well serve as that window on the war being waged by political means.

Patricia, I like that line thinking, taking what Peter Paret deems a central theme of On War, and looking at it as the resort of last political choice.

Greg, Vietnam is difficult, decision makers were increasingly constrained, I buy at least that pat of Prados' argument in his book on Vietnam, of a menu of decreasing policy and choice options over time. That said, no less an authority than Westmoreland, in his book A Soldier Reports, does an honest job discussing choosing not to intervene--the memoir is painfully honest, not self-serving as some believe. Westy really believed that intervention, just as his political masters believed, was the right thing to do. What was not well understood by American people was that we were trying to retrieve the result of a war that was already lost...but after election in 1964 Johnson and the best and brightest had more freedom of action...but the Congressional mid-terms of 1966 now drove things to a degree because of Johnson's domestic agenda.

However, when given a choice, the old Chinese proverb applies, "do not make the decision yet...wait a while..." although in matters of existential import waiting can be disastrous. I do not believe this to be the case in 1965 and 2003.

As for Afghanistan, it appears a reverse law applies....when given a choice to end involvement in a conflict, again if matters of existential import not in play AND one has geopolitical position that supports security (like US does), then withdraw.

As for Larry's response, I agree that quotation is mostly about not making war into something contrary to its particular nature. However, when one thinks through the ramifications, and that war changes in ways unanticipated--more than a true chameleon-- after one chooses it and commits resources, well...it is almost axiomatic that most wars turn into something that the chooser did not anticipate...even the most limited sorts of "wars." It is almost like quantum mechanics, in choosing you actually alter the context of the framework within which you chose.

vr, John T. Kuehn
PS we are looking at limited war theory, especially Michael Cannon's approach, right now at CGSC, or at least I am...

I submit that not just "what kind of war" needs to be thought through in advance but also what constitutes winning (just to be obvious.) "Winning Vietnam" would be defined as what - Unification of the country under terms satisfactory to the US? Preservation of the current Vietnamese regime (whichever one suited the purposes of the US at the moment), whether or not it was technically "legitimate"? Some sort of Asian version of the Good Friday agreement, recognizing the existence of two separate but equal Vietnams which peacefully co-exist...

Lt. Gen. Sir Frederick Morgan, while he was writing the outline OVERLORD plan, asked the Chiefs of Staff what the object was. The objective was Berlin and the removal of the Nazi government. But what was the objective? What happens next? Do the Allies turn Germany into Morgenthau's green and pleasant land?, a new unified state, three small states, was Germany to exist at all? He never got a clear answer. So, he focused on the objective and the post-fighting period was perhaps a bit more ad-hoc than it needed to be.

What one wants to have and how one defines it shapes the war one fights, as does doctrine, geography, financial resources and past experiences, particularly if successful. Perhaps the US's received wisdom about the legacy of the Second World War still gets in the way of figuring out how to fight differently.

V/R

Stephen Kepher

Regarding Stephen Kepher's comment, I had forgotten about Henry Morgenthau's "green and pleasant" plan for postwar Germany (and the fairly swift retreat from it when Stalin's intentions became obvious.) Still, isn't "green and pleasant" what everyone hopes for as a final outcome to all wars, even today?

Morgenthaus's plan even sounds like the sort of "far-reaching act of judgment" Clauewitz believed to be the responsibility of the statesman and commander. And though it was not quite an anti-war sentiment applied to his contemporary war, it was certainly an anti-war commitment regarding future wars. (And there's some strong evidence that many modern Germans might agree with Henry.)

As John notes, however, Schrödinger's cat and the complex chaotic dynamical system of history continue to confound.

RE: what Stephen wrote later in his post, the argument of many current diplomatic and military historians is that unconditional surrender was really about winning the peace in Japan and Germany. No more "stab in the back" myths that let weasely, dissembling militarists claim they were not defeated on the field of battle. But remember, Germany and Japan had a lot more in common with the United States culturally than Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

vr, John T. Kuehn

A few more notes in the string.
I had listed one of our strengths as being economically the strongest nation in the world. I had used that as just one reason why we could win any war we choose to participate in but by no means did I intend to imply that economics alone can win a war. It was just meant as one indicator of our comparative power (then and now). The use of any and all tools is always the key.

Although I had spent a lot of time focusing on Vietnam, mid-way through my own career I served as a regional advisor in El Salvador during the civil war there. That experience certainly flavored my own thoughts on the subject and in many ways amplified what I already thought I knew about specifically how the US prosecuted the war in Vietnam. As many have said it is a very complicated subject but very briefly, I believe our secret to "winning" the war in El Salvador (bringing it to a successful conclusion under conditions favorable to us and the country in 1992) was simply that we maintained our support until the end. I was there for 15 months trying to do the best I could. I think we had good people but I will tell you in my opinion we did not have a great strategy, we were mis-using a lot of our assets, etc... We were mostly plodding along. But with maybe only a dozen US KIA during the whole war, we paced ourselves for the long haul and that is what got us to the end. As I said, even if we are not that good at many aspects of the fight, pacing ourselves politically and militarily is what we must do. That is not very elegant nor does it sound good as a strategy but I think it is the bottom line first, last and always... But then we should still strive to be better at all the lesser moving parts to get to the end sooner... Regards. Greg Banner. LTC, USA (SF) (ret.)

Yeah, I've focused a lot of my energy and curiosity on Vietnam, having been there and seen Nixon's "secret plan" successfully implemented. (He never used that term, but in my opinion he had a strategy and a big part of it WAS secret. A story for another day.) But in the long run that open flank in Laos, where ran the Ho Chi Minh Trail that we could never cut, doomed us to failure. And Watergate had a lot to do with that accelerating that failure, removing the "mad bomber" from office a couple of years early.

As for El Salvador, no disrespect to the SF guys who were our few "boots on the ground," didn't we just help win the war on behalf of the "forty families?" Did anything we do help the common people? Hard for me to call that a "win."

And re. the original hand grenade, long immersion in military history leads me to think that going to war is mostly, all too often, casting our fate to the wind. Planned outcomes will seldom be achieved, and even if we "win" on the balance sheet, there will be a lot of collateral damage and unanticipated problems down the road. Look at Iraq, and be careful what you ask for.

When I think through John T Kuehn's statement here vis-à-vis Vietnam:

>> I often come away with a feeling that Clausewitz really thinks war, especially wars of choice,
>>are a tenuous gamble, that they really should only be undertaken to defend the state when the
>>state deserves defense.

I think he is missing a point regards the Westmoreland generation of American military and political leaders.

Namely, the Vietnam generation of American leaders thought that if you wait until war is the _absolutely_last_resort_. You have made a grave policy error that will get lots of citizens of your democratic nation-state unnecessarily killed.

Specifically, Westmoreland and his peers viewed the British and French failure of will during the 7 March 1936 German occupation of the Rhineland as the seminal moment where World War 2 could have been prevented.

The UK archives has a nice article on the Rhineland crisis here --

German occupation of the Rhineland
What should Britain do about it?
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/german-occupatio…

You cannot understand American political-military actions in the 1960's regards getting into in Vietnam without the context of 1936 "Lesson of the Rhineland" as the policy making 'salad day first impression' of what failed Western National Security & Foreign Policy making looked like.

The lesson for Vietnam era US leaders was that Western Democracies cannot fail the military testing/probing of the Authoritarian/Totalitarian powers if they wish to avert a major war.

Point in fact, it appears that President Donald Trump world view is more shaped by "The Lesson of the Rhineland" than Vietnam.

Specifically it is "The Lesson of the Rhineland" which is the "best fit" for both his actions in the 2017 Shayrat Cruise missile strike in Syria -- while Pres. Xi of China was dining with him in Mar-a-Lago -- and the later Feb 2017 Battle of Khasham. Where a Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah force supported the Russian PMC Wagner was annihilated by American air power.

Given that President Trump's uncle was the head of the British Branch of the MIT Radiation Laboratory (BBRL) in WWII. It should not be surprising that "The Lesson of the Rhineland" is central to his national security policy making.

See Syrian background articles:

2017 Shayrat missile strike
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Shayrat_missile_strike

Battle of Khasham
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khasham

The truth about the brutal four-hour battle between Russian mercenaries and US commandos in Syria
Up to 300 Russian and Syrian fighters killed in the attack
Eric Schmitt, Ivan Nechepurenko, C J Chivers
Saturday 26 May 2018
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/battle-syria-us-russian-mercen…

Larry et al, thanks to Venona Files we now know Morgenthau's assistant secy of Treasurer was a bonafide Soviet Spy who shaped Morgenthau's thinking to better serve Soviet interest. Harry Dexter White. Interestingly, this fact does not pop up right away in either google searches or Wikapedia. Which is why I highlight it hear, at least we historians should keep it ever in mind when thinking about the Morgenthau Plan or Bretton Woods.

As for the somewhat willful ignorance that I imply exists about White's agendas, see here:
https://networks.h-net.org/node/28443/reviews/3693313/gray-scott-smith-…

Although White is mentioned nowhere in the article is the word spy used. A rather glaring omission, right?

Of course way off track from the intent of the original handgrenade with this sidebar.

vr, John T. Kuehn

A couple of items reference Ralph Hitchens last post.
He made a comment about President Nixon's actions concerning Vietnam. May or may not be valid but I would say President Nixon was handed a problem way down the road and had limited options. All of the administrations had their challenges but just in general if there is blame to be laid I would look more towards earlier decisions rather than later having to pick up pieces...

Regarding the Ho Chi Minh trail, my MMAS thesis at Leavenworth was on exactly that topic. I basically wanted to study the very common perception that "if we had only just blocked the trail it would have won the war for us." Basically I said "no" but the thesis is over 100 pages of discussion and you can find it on line by looking for MMAS thesis on the Leavenworth web site. (As a side note - it is also on Amazon where someone grabbed my public domain document, slapped a cover on it and posted it for sale... I don't know how common that is but I know mine is there. Earlier editions even kept my name as the author, the current edition does not but uses my title "The War for the Ho Chi Minh Trail.")

Lastly about El Salvador; Ralph Hitchens' comment: "As for El Salvador, no disrespect to the SF guys who were our few "boots on the ground," didn't we just help win the war on behalf of the "forty families?" Did anything we do help the common people? Hard for me to call that a "win.""

Actually, no.... Of course one of our common problems in fighting/supporting counterinsurgency efforts is that most often the other side has plenty of legitimate complaints and there are no lack of problems with the host nation government and military forces. That was a huge factor in Vietnam and yes throughout Central America. We decided to abandon Nicaragua and the communist victory there didn't turn out so well for either us or the people of Nicaragua. The economy of El Salvador and much of the power base was certainly in the hands of the few powerful families but their influence has been declining over the years and there were huge groups of the working population who had no interest in supporting the leftist/communist FMLN forces. The peace which finally came resulted in monitored and fair elections which really integrated both the government and the guerrilla (FMLN) political parties. The political leadership and government since then has allowed both to participate. All things considered it is almost a model of integration with everyone at least respectful enough not to have to resort back to armed conflict. It was a really good outcome after over a decade of war. Of course economic problems continue and the impact of drug money and gangs fueled by US drug consumption (a "victim-less crime" in the words of many pro-drug US citizens) remains and has grown throughout Central America. But again, the peace treaty which ended the war in 1992 was about as good as it could have gotten and at the time supported a vast majority of the interests of all sides in the conflict... IMHO.
Greg Banner
LTC, USA (ret.)

Ralph, for yrs. carried around a news story in my wallet, where it stated, Nixon had said he had a 'secret' plan to end the war, as part of his 68 campaign for the WH. It was public knowledge as part of the environment back then.

As for the lessons of WW II and confronting political/military challenges, quite right. The generation view was summed in Pres. Johnson's declaration about Vietnam, "no more Munichs"; avoiding appeasement was big part of the propellent to entering Vietnam conflict. But it must be remembered, Kennedy had already done, thru the emphasis on 'guerrilla' warfare, when US advisors went into Vietnam before 1964. In 65, after Johnson had won the campaign in his own right for the WH, Communist challenge to US and South in the Central Highlands, by attacking the US air base at Pleiku, brought the need for US intervention into sharp focus and Johnson did exactly that, setting off the next decades events, warfare history in Vietnam.

Couple of points on this thread and posts; one here and another re: Vietnam, elsewhere.

Despite Morganthau's Deputy, as a spy for the Sovs, M would not likely have held a different position than reduction of Germany to an agricultural, non-industrial nation. History was not on the side of the Germans after US experiences in WW I, something FDR had known and seen also.

John! (clutches pearls) Do you mean to say there WERE communists (checks notes) in the Treasury Department!?

"Shades of Tailgunner Joe!"

I kid, but seriously, thanks for the reminder. I hadn't recalled Venona when I mentioned Henry, but given Morgenthau's Jewish background, the fresh discovery of the Holocaust, and the fact that he supported plans to rescue Jews from the camps earlier than that other hot bed of espionage (State), I doubt that any Soviet agent had to work very hard. There were a lot of people upset with the Germans by 1944, including a couple of my uncles. In any case, cooler heads prevailed pretty quickly.

To attempt a turn back to your original point, (the key act of judgment of statesman/commander is to properly typecast the war, etc.): Read from the German perspective, the Holocaust was precisely that kind of mistake by the Nazis. By running a war of extermination parallel to their military campaigns, the purely military war of conquest was weakened significantly as more and more resources were diverted to killing Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, and etc. Happily, neither war ended well for the Germans.

Carrying through on Morgenthau's plan could have would have represented the same sort of mistake by the western allies, though considering the conditions by late 1944, they might have gotten away with it for a time. However, it would have been contrary to lessons they thought they had learned after the first war, (Victory must be complete and acknowledged, but punishment cannot be eternal, for example.) and they were determined not to make the same mistakes twice.

Nevertheless, the Western Allies and the Russians eventually confronted a similar sort of disconnect soon after the official war was over in Europe. The Russians fully intended (or at least weren't worried about ) turning their part of Germany into a plowed field albeit one under their close control. The Western Allies chose not to do the same. Once they heated up the Cold War, so to speak, each side discovered that they needed to recast their Germans as allies.

I don't think this contradicts your rule, but the observation begs a question: How soon after concluding a war with one design (destruction of Germany) can commanders and leaders start another (if colder) with the opposite design (confront old allies with old enemies as new allies)?

Re. Greg Banner's post -- Thanks for referencing your Leavenworth thesis, which I found online and read with interest. My belief that cutting the Ho Chi Minh Trail and fortifying all the way from the South China Sea to the Mekong River was the only way to win the Vietnam War did not get into details, for sure. It would have been extraordinarily difficult to accomplish, all but impossible but not impossible, I believe, it would have required a LOT of US troops & resources, and those in the military chain of command way above my pay grade (O-3 at the time) can hardly be blamed for not jumping on Harry Summers' strategic insight at the time. My only rationale for saying it is that I do believe geography was right up there with any other proximate cause of our failure in Vietnam. No matter how hard it might have been to accomplish the extension of the DMZ to the Mekong River, I can't see any other conceptual solution to the military problem we faced in Vietnam. The aerial and intelligence resources we devoted to interdicting the Ho Chi Minh Trail (my own insignificant part of the war) were immense, and all to no avail. I think the creation, maintenance, operation, and defense of the Trail represent one of the most impressive military operations in 20th century history.

A subsequent post by Mr. Banner (I think) talked about the mindset of NSC decision-makers during the early & mid-60s when we embarked on that ill-fated crusade. Given the "axiomatic thinking" of those guys, you know, the "best and brightest," there was simply no alternative course of action that would ever get any traction or sophisticated analysis. Was there anyone in any position of influence to suggest, "this is a no-win situation, we can't stay the course and we can bet that they will, but a unified Vietnam won't necessarily pose any further threat, it's not a zero-sum game, you know they'll be up against the PRC as soon as the American War is over, you know . . ."? Did anyone who openly opposed the war (Fulbright, Ball, McGovern) ever spin out plausible alternative scenarios that might have suggested a rationale for not getting involved over there?

Greg, The problem is pretty widespread, my SAMS monograph was published in the same manner as was my MMAS, both on Napoleonic topics. What I do is go to Amazon, and then in a book review provide the reader directions to download the work for free from the Combined Arms Research Library (CARL) website at Fort Leavenworth. That way one can at least give readers the choice to save money while at some time prevent these charlatans from making any money.

R, John T. Kuehn, Fort Leavenworth Kansas

I have found the discussion of Clausewitz interesting. It has been several since I've read the book and it provoked me to re-read this philosophic classic.
I found the discussion about Vietnam interesting too, if limited. But, we (myself included) are all limited by our own experiences. When I came to Fort Leavenworth in 1994 (until 2001) I was told in no uncertain terms (quite bluntly actually) the Vietnam experience, on any level, was irrelevant to the turbulent present. As I rose in the hierarchy, I came to realize that the mind set of our political and career decision makers had not changed from the 1960s or even from the 1950s.
I still have not yet seen an answer to the question Dean Acheson asked in 1953, "How did US policy toward Indochina change from the anti-imperialist stance advocated by FDR to backing the re-imposition of French colonial rule in 1946?"
If one reads the most discriminating and thorough examination, Arthur J. Dommen, The Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans: Nationalism and Communism in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001) one finds that when dealing with local politics and personalities, Dommen reveals the care and perspicacity with which American and French diplomats viewed the local scene. When dealing with the wars of independence, Dommen illustrates how they became intertwined with Cold War international relations. Unsurprisingly, the aspirations of the various nationalist and communist groups disappear as they are swallowed up in this Great Power rivalry.
The emergent picture is one of backroom deals and diplomacy accompanied by official mendacity. Dommen’s shattering revelation about the decisions to commit American resources to Indochina and the conduct of the war is that those who made them were well informed. No one lied to them about the probability of success, and they engaged anyway. Providing better or complete information didn't end the bad decisions. In the end, the decisions to intervene and withdraw were ideological, not informational. Disagreements arose over what conditions and how the United States should try to affect the governance of other countries. In sum, it's not what we know but what we believe in that makes the difference.
I hope that has not been too lengthy and I have not re-stated the obvious.
v/r, Lewis Bernstein

Re. Ralph Hitchens' post: I cannot recall any American in a position of influence arguing that a united Communist Vietnam would not be an intolerable threat to US interests. I suspect that some of them thought this, but fear and hatred of Communism were obligatory in public life. One could not hope to retain significant influence if one said clearly and publicly that Communist victory in the war might be tolerable.

I myself believed that Communist victory would not seriously threaten US interests, and I know I said so, but I am not certain I ever said it clearly in any public venue, and I was far from being a person of influence.

Important opponents of the war, instead of arguing that the United States did not need to prevent the Communists from getting control of South Vietnam, argued that Communist rule could be prevented by methods other than a bloody war. They often seemed to believe that the Communists would be willing to abandon their war effort and leave South Vietnam under the control of the anti-Communist government in Saigon, if the United States and Saigon would just have the courtesy to come to a peace conference and accept their surrender. I have discussed this in some detail in my essay "The Mirage of Negotiations," in Lloyd C. Gardner and Tet Gittinger, eds., The Search for Peace in Vietnam, 1964-1968 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004), pp. 73-82.

(I'll try again)

It's fairly obvious but not noted sufficiently, IMHO: a major reason that "victory" for our side in VN was near impossible was the simple fact that if the we won, Indo-China would remain divided; if the North won, it would be re-united. Thus, the NLF could claim that, sure there were communists in their Front, but that the war was basically part of the age-long great patriotic struggle to free their land from foreign domination/imperialism.

Regards,

Stanley Sandler

I find it interesting in how quickly the discussion got away from assessing what Clausewitz himself was getting at and moving into a debate on Vietnam. The shift was almost immediate from his war to “our” war, and the caution that has constrained America’s use of military force lest we face another Vietnam ever since.

I don’t think such caution is at all what Clausewitz was recommending, nor do I think that On War can be considered a subtly anti-war treatise. In reading Donald Stoker’s “Clausewitz: His Life and Works,” the reader finds two things apparent. First: Clausewitz was not anti-war; indeed, his entire career he longed for billets that would put him in the heat of the action. If the struggles he endured following Prussia’s defeat at Jena-Auerstedt—he had a front-row seat to the Prussian army’s great retreat—did not make him anti-war, I’m not sure anything would. Stoker also makes clear that Clausewitz despised both what he saw as general French arrogance, and Napoleon’s specific desire to rule Europe. War was not something Prussia had to engage in reluctantly because there was no better option; Napoleon deserved to get his, and Clausewitz wanted Prussia to play a big part in delivering the Corsican his comeuppance.

The second thing apparent in Clausewitz’s attitude is closely tied to how Clausewitz viewed Prussia’s preparations, or lack thereof, for war. He hated the weakness and vacillation of Prussia’s king in failing to take a strong stand against France at the outset. And this is where I see the context for Clausewitz’s admonition to understand the war you are fighting. For the longest time, Prussia’s leaders could not understand the different type of war Napoleon was waging. Napoleon was mobilizing his entire nation; Prussia still thought in terms of limited wars for small aims fought by the aristocracy and an army separated from the general population. Clausewitz wanted Prussia to adapt and change to this new reality to wage war against Napoleon more effectively.

Stoker reveals a passion inside Clausewitz that does not make itself readily apparent in the text of On War. He was no reluctant warrior.

True, this thread did wander far afield from JK's original Hand Grenade, and Clausewitz was shoved aside for a bit. I wonder, though, re. Ian Brown's post, how much significance we should attach to Clausewitz's desire to get into battle as counter-evidence of the caution he wrote about years later, about states deciding to go to war. My guess is that many who have made war their profession will express earnest desire to be in the front lines, even as they (some of them, at least) might question the wisdom of those in pay grades far above them who make decisions about war and peace. Clausewitz had seen and surely pondered the questionable decision of Prussia to stand aside while its erstwhile Third Coalition partners, Austria & Russia, were defeated by Napoleon -- and the suicidal Prussian decision in 1806 to unilaterally challenge Napoleon.

Re. Vietnam, I think Ed Moise nailed it, as he usually does. North Vietnam had one consistent objective from which it never deviated.

I'm not a military historian, but a scholar of persuasion and deliberation. And so I tend to look at military deliberations as policy argumentation, and Vietnam, almost from the beginning, looks to me as though the decisions were entirely political and rarely military. And most of the decision-makers privileged performance of in-group loyalty (looking tough on communism) over sensible military or even, oddly enough, policy considerations.

Had the US been willing to have as allies nations that engaged in non-Soviet-aligned communism, it's hard to say what would have happened. But, from a political perspective, such a stance would have been political suicide. Eisenhower might have been able to pull it off, but no Dem could have.

I have an odd question about Vietnam, and I'm sorry if this has been covered. It seems to me that a lot of the "we could have won" narratives ignore that China was sending troops to Vietnam. We could never beat China in a war of attrition, so, what is the we could have won in a war of attrition against China narrative?

(Talk about hand grenades.)

Quite a range of discussion re: Clausewitz as an anti-war thesis. Will still hold to my observation the reverse of Clausewitz's theory of war as politics by other[deadly] means, ie, war is politics by other[nondeadly] means in so far as one will accept Clausewitz as a theory of 'war'.

These more recent conclusions indicate several other facets. Long has there been a debate in Social Psychology about the importance of nature v. nurture. To wit, the relevance and weight to be given environment and experience as constituting the sum results of human outcomes, vis a vis man's inherent nature.
This is certainly touched upon by the claim posited that we are limited by our experiences offered. Question arises, then, can man rise above his limited experiences to understand
history and/or events as they become history ?

Prof. Moise, would be inclined to conclude underestimates his influence, though am thinking in what context it is advanced as to the meaning. But, as to Vietnam must continue to disagree in some regard; outcome of Vietnam was important to US interests of the time[historical period]. It was more than just the decisionmakers saying so. Besides, if you examine the Congressional divide, you do find substantial weight against the US position in military engagement over Vietnam. Sen. Fulbright, Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee was but one of these.
In reading testimony before Senate, even Kennen, who formed Truman's famous containment policy at State, was not supportive of the Vietnam incursion[am doing this from memory without access to the documents presently].

These observations aside, Clausewitz, as theory of War, may well have been right at home over Vietnam; among the leading theoriest of American strategy and policy during the era, both political and military views differed as to what doctrinal practice should be followed to confront the world wide Communist threat, as ideology and a political/military force. Who prevailed as was correct in their analysis was vital to the continued survival and success of America and its interests in that global ideologic and political struggle.

This is an incredibly short answer and attempt to draw a valid picture of that history. Whether the US could have ever convinced the North to accept a negotiated political solution for Vietnam and its division seems highly unlikely, leaving only the idea of all out war with Communism or the 'limited' war attempts of doctrine and practice then contending for acceptance as the way forward to American success, thru military force. Pres. Johnson opted for this latter approach, even while many in Congress and the American public called to outright abandonment of the South Vietnamese people and ally to their fate at the hands of the Communist. We now know what would have happened then, given what did happen after the US pulled out. At least the lesson of abandoning allies was not seen to be one of cut and run then. This is a vital US interest alone.

Professor Bernstein, Dommen is indeed a magisterial work and it surprises how few people ever refer to it. Thanks for mentioning it. vr, John (T. Kuehn), handgrenade-thrower-in-chief (HTIC)

All: back to the beginning. I still believe that as one tallies up all of the factors involved in going to war for anything other than national survival due to an invasion of one's homeland,* as listed in all 8 books of On War, one finds it very hard to justify going to war for any other reason. Or from a logical standpoint, a cold rational risk assessment makes war as a matter of choice appear ludicrously risky and fraught with violent disaster.

Vr, John T. Kuehn
*Which I suspect is one reason Vietnam always seems to come up, for one nation it was choice that had little to do with national survival, for the other side it was life or death itself (as a unified Vietnam).

Edwin, on the topic of a united communist Vietnam, there was a clear downside after 1975-- the giant Soviet naval and air base at Cam Ranh Bay (built by the US!) that so bedeviled Seventh Fleet operations in the Western Pacific in the 1980s until the Soviet Union imploded. However, would that base have even been there had the policy decisions PRIOR to NSC-68 been more just, more true to US values and interests? WA Williams mused as much in The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (among other things), but the cold hard reality is that in many ways the intervention to save S. Vietnam in 1964-65 from collapse after its military defeat by Hanoi and the NLF did not so much delay the spread of communism as it ensured a hostile strategic base for our enemy across a key sea line of communication in the South China Sea (or Southeast Asian Sea) if a government in S. Vietnam lost anyway, even with our intervention. Every time I flew a mission off Cam Ranh Bay in the South China Sea aboard my trusty EP-3 in the 1980s I was reminded of the bitter fruit of our decisions and our, yes our, defeat. John T. Kuehn

For Ms. Roberts-Miller -- I don't believe China was sending troops to Vietnam. We never faced troops from the PRC in Vietnam as we had in Korea. They provided limited military assistance to North Vietnam and did cultivate the Communist insurgents in Cambodia.

China also fought a short "border war" with the USSR in 1969, but throughout most the Vietnam War they allowed Soviet military supplies/equipment destined for North Vietnam to transit China by rail and air. After President Nixon's rapprochement with China in early 1972, this resupply route was essentially shut down, if I recall correctly.

Prof. Kuehn, did the Soviet airbase at Cam Ranh Bay really have a serious operational impact on US Naval operations in the western Pacific? I know they operated Tu-95 "Bear" long range reconnaissance from Cam Ranh until sometime in the 1980s, but were these any more of a bother than the Bears seen over the north Atlantic, throughout much of the Cold War? Just curious.

Wyatt Reader, the Chinese contribution to North Vietnam during the US war was minimal. They sent mainly railway troops southwards, to repair the railway tracks that the USAF damage in order to prevent the PRC and the fUSSR from being able to send Materiale' to North Vietnam. They also sent approximately 10,000 AA troops to man AAA to defend the railways southwards from the border to Hanoi. The PRC and the North Vietnamese always had a odd relationship. The North Vietnamese used the PRC when it suited them and they needed them. The PRC found it advantageous to aid North Vietnam until the Cultural Revolution interrupted the transhipment of Soviet supplies across the PRC. Once that happened, the fUSSR found it more advantageous to use ships, through Haiphong. The politics of the Communist Bloc' were just as interesting as the West and just as fraught with problems.

Another way to view the Second Indochina War, which I have not heard mentioned is at a much broader macro level - viewing the US efforts in Indochina as just one battle in the broader Cold War. From that perspective we lost the battle but won the war. Also from that perspective and to re-iterate my earlier comments, I think we had to be engaged as the leader of the free world to fight "communist aggression" wherever it appeared; somewhat like the challenge we now face with Islamic Fundamentalism. We might lose some battles but for the big picture abandoning the struggle for whatever the reason is not a good option long term.

That does not excuse poor execution and we certainly don't want to say "it doesn't matter if we lose one battle as long as we win the war," but in hind-site I think it puts individual struggles in perspective (which is what we really should do - looking long, rather than short-term...)

I think intuitively, even if they can't articulate it very well, many political leaders grasp the idea that we have to engage in these long-term struggles even if it is really, really, really hard to rationalize to all a short-term effort in one obscure place. A strategic policy statement to that effect crossing multiple administrations and political parties would go a long way towards this approach.

Another error is to try to view things much later, rather than in the context of the times. We cannot look at our current relationship with Vietnam and then say our actions 1950s-1970s were "obviously" wrong and wasted. If we had not "stood up" to the international communist movement as we did, it is possible that communist governments around the globe would not have evolved in the ways they have...
IMHO.
Greg Banner
LTC, USA (ret.)

Patricia, The dynamic of Chinese support for the regime in Hanoi is a fascinating one, with a trajectory that is interesting AND NOT well understood. It was not until I read Kenneth Whiting's old but still excellent The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence that its outlines became clearer to me.

Mao's regime went from primary supporter to partner supporter with the USSR, to reluctant support, to withdrawal (in late 1960s) to outright hostility in a 35 year period.
The Sino-Soviet split played a major role in all of this, especially the border conflicts between them in the late 1960s.
LBJ was right about at least one thing, an invasion of North Vietnam to stop the follow of logistics down the Ho Chi Minh trail would probably have brought more Chinese troops into the war, it would have encountered their logistics and air defense personnel, some 55,000 at their height if it had occurred in 1967 or 1968 (when during Tet Westmoreland asked for more troops for just such a thing given that Tet was turning into an NLF/PAVN military disaster).
However, Johnson's unilateral halt of the bombing, ROLLING THUNDER (the most hamhanded air campaign by a western nation in history), allowed the Chinese an excuse to evacuate their personnel and Hanoi's principal supporter became Moscow. China instead decided to focus on its proxy, the Khmer Rouge, in Kampuchea for a counterweight to Soviet influence, thus the 15 year war AFTER 1975 in Kampuchea between Vietnam on the Maoist forces and then guerillas. Vietnam won that war in the 1980s, a little studied successful COIN campaign.
Back to China, the other key factor, related to the other things was of course the China-US rapprochement that occurred in the early 1970s.
So prior to the Chinese withdrawal after TET, yes, a war of attrition in the North would have involved the PLA. After that, circa 1970, the war of attrition in fact did occur, but in the south, between a withdrawing US, a struggling ARVN, and primarily the PAVN. And Saigon lost. By extension so did the US. Recall, too, that China and Vietnam fought a vicious little border war in 1979--again China's response to Vietnam's invasion of Kampuchea that ended the horrible genocide their.
best, John (HTIC) Kuehn

All: I brought up Whiting's model for Chinese Deterrence in my post to Patricia Roberts-Miller.
Here is my articulation of it from a book review I did for a graduate seminar 18 years ago for David Graff..
Whiting's Strategic Calculus of Deterrence Model

Threat and Their Deterrence as Seen from Peking

1. The worse our domestic situation, the more likely our external situation will worsen.
a) A superior power in proximity will seek to take advantage of our domestic vulnerability.

b) Two or more powers will combine against us if they can temporarily overcome their own conflicts of interest.

c) We must prepare for the worst and try for the best.

2. The best deterrence is belligerence.[emphasis mine]

a) To be credible, move military force: words do not suffice.

b) To be diplomatic, leave the enemy "face" and a way out.

c) To be prudent, leave yourself an "option."

d) If at first you don't succeed, try again but more so.

3. Correct timing is essential.

a) Warning must be given early when a threat is perceived but not yet imminent.

b) The rhythm of signals must permit the enemy to respond and us to confirm the situation.

c) We must control our moves and not respond according to the enemy's choice.

Kuehn Note: Some of this simply seems like common sense and Whiting says as much, however he claims boldly immediately after listing this calculus, " The parameters of successful behavior in politics and in war have relatively few alternative configurations." Additionally, this resonates to a far greater degree because it comes near the end of the book, a culmination of arguments made over the previous two hundred pages of evidence.

Whiting, Alan S. The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1985), pp. 202-203.

very respectfully, John

John Kuehn, I also liked Allen Whiting's book The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence, but recent scholarship indicates Whiting was seriously underestimating the size of the forces the Chinese put into North Vietnam. The peak Chinese military strength in North Vietnam seems to have been 170,000, not 55,000. (The figure 320,000 in some sources is a cumulative total of all the Chinese who were in North Vietnam during any part of the war, analogous to the figures of over 2,000,000 for Americans who served in Vietnam).

One function of the Chinese troops was to help the North Vietnamese cope with Rolling Thunder. Their antiaircraft gunners defended road and rail lines, their engineers repaired bomb damage, and their very presence to some extent discouraged American bombing of the areas where they were stationed (the US really didn't want trouble with China).

Their other function was to deter the US from invading North Vietnam.

I am not sure even the Chinese would have formulated a clear view as to which of the two functions was more important.

Just an added, from online sources, references re: Prof. Moise comments upon the Vietnam situation within our US Govt., by 1970, hostility to American actions domestically, reached this point shown below in the Sen. John Sherman Cooper[R] Ky. and Sen Frank Church[D] Idaho Amendement, enacting limitation on Presidential war making powers over Pres. Nixon's Cambodia invasion, 1970.

Am offering these selected sources, displaying that Prof. Moise was not alone in his questioning of US involvement in Vietnam. In fact, the divisions in the Senate predated this particular period, as in the country at large. Do not consider the presentation however, an indication of personal position at that time; was a witness of sorts to these events and others, even while being in support of US actions in Vietnam then.

The Congressional Record is replete with debate and discussions, both of this Cooper-Church Amendement and what grew out of those time the eventual War Powers Act, which sought to place limitations on Presidential authority to conduct war.

Merely adding these here, to indicate a more expansive history and record, complete with important and very substantive divisions to that historical record. They were experienced during the Johnson years also and it is from the same Congressional Records, daily published by Congress, that my own documents are currently packed and not able to reference directly or specific.

Cooper-Church Amendment passes in Senate - HISTORY
https://www.history.com / this-day-in-history / cooper-church-amendment-... - 194k - similar pagesNov 16, 2009 ... The Senate votes 58 to 37 in favor of adopting the Cooper-Church amendment to limit presidential power in Cambodia. The amendment barred …

Cooper-Church Amendment - Vietnam War - Exploring Perspectives ...
https://libguides.uky.edu/c.php?g=223318&p=1478474 - similar pagesJul 26, 2018 ... Read through the New York Times articles to familiarize yourself with the Cooper- Church Amendment, and the letters from Kentucky citizens …

U.S. Senate: John Sherman Cooper: A Featured Biography
https://www.senate.gov / artandhistory / history / common / generic / Featured_Bio_Cooper.htm - 32k - similar pagesCooper's deep interest in foreign policy led to his early opposition of U.S. intervention in Vietnam, prompting him to co-sponsor the Cooper-Church amendment …

Mr. Hitchens, I am somewhat biased having flown EP-3 missions in the South China Sea, principally as a gateguard against the Soviet air and naval complex at Cam Ranh Bay from 1983-1986.
The Soviets based Bear D, Bear F, and eventually an entire squadron of MiG-23s there. Not sure if they later upgraded that squadron (more a regiment than a squadron) to MiG-29s, I think they did.
In addition to all that air they also deployed submarines (diesels mostly) there as well as some of their major surface units, including a large Kara class guided missile cruiser which I still have a picture of in my collection that we took on one mission, I think it was the Petropavlavsk. When the task group centered on CVHG (Kiev class) Novorossiyisk came through the SCS in 1984 it stopped off at Cam Ranh Bay for a port visit/maintenance visit. Submarines transiting from the Indian Ocean back to the Pacific Red Banner Fleet also stopped there to refuel/revictual and undergo repairs and maintenance. We (the US) built the soviets a fine base, they stayed in the billeting we built there too!
Important? There was only one reconnaissance squadron in the Western Pacific at that time, VQ-1, which flew EA-3s (from carriers) and EP-3s (from land bases). looking at my flight log book I flew almost 1900 hours while assigned as a naval flight officer to VQ-1 from July 1983 to July 1986. 41% of those hours were flow out of the Philippines against Cam Ranh Bay, 50% out of Japan against the USSR proper, and the other 9% were training, flying against the Iranians and North Koreans.
So yeah, for 7th Fleet, Pacfleet, and PACOM, Cam Ranh Bay was important given how much what was considered a national intelligence collection asset (the venerable EP-3 Aries I) was used against that base.
That is about all I can talk about using my unclassified flight log books and my photos (which were also unclassified), in addition to my unclassified fitness reports. I had an article published about 9 years ago here, although it is about what happened when the Cold War ended:
- "Navy Peacetime Aerial Reconnaissance During the Late Cold War in the Soviet Far East Military District and South China Sea," posted at:
http://www.vmi.edu/uploadedFiles/Archives/Adams_Center/EssayContest/200…
(February, 2010).
Jon House's upcoming second volume of _A Military History of The Cold War_ published by Oklahoma University Press will include some of this.
There is much room for scholarship in this area but I am afraid much of it is still classified. IN the absence of that archival information I am afraid that the vacuum is filled with myths and legends.

vr, John T. Kuehn
(former Senior Evaluator--SEVAL-- and Mission Commander of EP-3s in the 1980s).

Do not think had said anything about the Chinese as suggested by Brian Ross. In fact, the truth of that time was Johnson did reject Westmoreland request for more expansion via more troops and by moving North, precisely because He and US were not looking to expand the war by drawing Chinese Volunteers into the conflict a la the Korean War model and history of experiences.

Lt. Banner's analysis, and thoughts are quite good; and, if you do not mind too much, quite accurate description of the actual events, their meaning and most of the history.

Re: Patricia Roberts-Miller's question:

There are two possible ways of reconciling the "we could have won" narratives with the problem of China. One is to assume that China would not actually have fought the United States to defend North Vietnam, so the Americans were actually free to do as they pleased in Vietnam without serious risk of triggering a war with China. See for example Mark Moyar, Triumph Forsaken, pp. 320-21 and 500-501, for comments along these lines on Chinese policy in the period 1964-65.

I reject this argument. I think the Chinese were ready and willing to fight the United States in defense of North Vietnam. They had been willing to fight the United States to keep the US Army away from the Chinese border in North Korea in 1950, when the US had atomic weapons and China was technologically so primitive that it could not manufacture a truck. I do not think they had become less willing to fight to keep the US Army away from their border in 1965, when they could have deterred the Americans from using atomic weapons by threatening to use their own.

The other possible argument, however, is that the United States could have won a war of attrition in South Vietnam without drawing in the Chinese. This is think is correct. China did not care enough about South Vietnam to risk a war with the United States over it.

I have never accepted the argument that the Vietnamese Communists had no breaking point, that they would have been willing to go on suffering huge casualties indefinitely. They were losing probably more than ten men dead for every one American they managed to kill, out of a much smaller population base. They found our breaking point in 1969. But if we had been willing to go on feeding young men into the battle of attrition, we would eventually have found theirs.

This is not to say I think we should have done that. I think rational policy would have been for the United States to abandon the effort sooner, not keep it going longer.

Regarding John Kuehn's comment:

The United States had built a giant base at Cam Ranh Bay during the Vietnam War. After the war, the Soviets established a considerably smaller base on the site, not large enough seriously to threaten US interests. We assigned reconnaissance aircraft such as the one on which Kuehn flew to keep an eye on the Soviet activities, but if the Soviet forces there ever bedeviled, or seriously threatened to bedevil, Seventh Fleet operations in the Western Pacific in the 1980s, I have not heard about it. The most important Soviet forces based at Cam Ranh were submarines, I think on the order of half a dozen of them. Basing them at Cam Ranh presumably allowed them to shadow US ships more often than would have been practical if they had been based at more distant ports in the Soviet Union. I am sure this annoyed the Seventh Fleet, but I don't think it was in any genuine sense a problem.

Greg Banner, For the most part I think the US decision to fight in Vietnam undermined the US position in the Cold War.

The US chose to fight in Vietnam. The results included: 1) Vietnam became Communist anyway, but this did no significant harm to US interests. 2) The US military was both reduced in size (this was permanent--military personnel strength post-Vietnam never came within half a million of the levels under the Kennedy administration) and demoralized (this was not permanent, but it lasted some years). 3) The US relationship with important allies was seriously weakened.

If the US had chosen not to fight, allowing Communist victory to occur sooner, I don't think the harm to American alliances would have been significantly greater, and the weakening of the US military could have been avoided.

In short, I think the United States did the Soviet Union a huge favor by choosing to fight in Vietnam. The United States won the Cold War anyway, but fighting in Vietnam had not contributed to that victory. I see Vietnam the way I see the Battle of Fredericksburg, in 1862. The Union went on to win the Civil War despite the pointless losses the Union suffered at Fredericksburg, but the decision to fight at Fredericksburg had not in any way contributed to that final victory. Quite the opposite.

Just a couple of more points on Prof. Moise's, Roberts-Miller reply re: China and North Vietnam war conduct.

Had the Vietnam involvement policy continued, yes, do think it would have seriously undermind US Cold War position. Nixon's approach on withdrawal changed that despite taking 8-10 yrs longer.
Precipitous withdrawal would have caused even worse, both domestic and internationally.

It was always a 'holding operation' until different factors could produce different outcomes. Those never happened, except for the bombing campaign to break loose peace negotiations.

As early as 1965, Prof. Lyons{UK], announced a position in one seminar held at UCLA, that the US policy would be better based in the offshore islands[Philipines] to S E Asia; Britain may well have had a better view of situation both short and long term but US policy did not adopt this British view then.

Larry Grant argues that the Morgenthau Plan "was certainly an anti-war commitment regarding future wars." No, it most certainly was not. It was intended only to ensure that Germany engaged in no future wars. There was no commitment that the "Four Policemen" (the USA, the USSR, the UK, and China) would not engage in future wars. On the contrary, they intended to remain armed, so that they could make war on nations who "threatened the peace" after the war. As Roosevelt said to Stalin at Tehran, after the war, if a country threatened the peace, then "the four powers, acting as policemen, would send an ultimatum to the nation in question and if refused, [it] would result in the immediate bombardment and possible invasion of that country."

Grant also argues that the Morgenthau Plan sounds like "the sort of "far-reaching act of judgment" Clausewitz believed to be the responsibility of the statesman and commander." I disagree emphatically. The Morgenthau Plan reflected profound short-sightedness, poor judgment, and an astounding lack of awareness of history. In the short term, during the war, the Plan made the Germans fight harder. It was one thing to avoid repeating the “blunder” of letting the Germans surrender conditionally in 1918, and it was another thing entirely to provide the enemy leadership with unnecessary reinforcement of their propaganda themes and to deny the average enemy soldier any reason to surrender.

Over the longer term, the Plan - along with the rest of Roosevelt's ideas for the division and weakening of Germany and Japan - were based on the assumption that the alliance between the USA, UK, and USSR would continue after the war. Historical experience up to 1944 clearly showed that wartime coalitions usually fell apart after the common enemy was defeated. There was even less reason to expect the wartime US-UK-USSR alliance to continue after the war than was the case with past alliances. Even the most cursory knowledge of Stalin and the Soviet regime - which had, after all, repeatedly taken aggressive action against its neighbors before 1941 - should have suggested to a far-sighted statesman that the chances of successful postwar cooperation were very slender indeed. That being the case, a far-sighted statesman would not seek to cripple the USSR's neighbors, who could (and as it happened, did) become future allies. The short-sightedness of the Morgenthau Plan is further demonstrated by the fact that German rearmament began receiving serious consideration four years after the war ended, and was actually put into effect ten years after the war ended.

The Morgenthau Plan, if implemented, would have resulted in the starvation, impoverishment, and dislocation of tens of millions of Germans. (Germany might have been "green" but it wouldn't have been "pleasant".) Morgenthau was aware of this concern in 1944 but dismissed it as exaggerated and unimportant. Such an act was certain to provoke long-lasting hatred against the United States that the USSR would have exploited - hardly an act of far-reaching judgment from the standpoint of practical politics. As it was, even without the Morgenthau Plan, local Communists in liberated and occupied Europe and Asia blamed the world hunger crisis on America and exploited it to advance their interests.

The idea of starving and impoverishing the Germans may have seemed attractive during the war, but it was completely short-sighted to imagine this policy would continue after the war, when passions had cooled. Once the United States had "boots on the ground", the actual reality of starving German women and children would have forced abandonment of the Morgenthau Plan. Even without the Morgenthau Plan, Truman had alleviate German hunger after evidence of it reached him in 1946. Similarly, hunger in occupied Japan forced the Americans to feed their former enemies, even though the Japanese were far more hated during the war than the Germans ever were. In short, implementing the Morgenthau Plan would have been completely impractical - and a far-sighted statesman would have foreseen this in 1944.

From a moral standpoint, the Morgenthau Plan would have been an act of large-scale evil reminiscent of the German "Hunger Plan" devised before Barbarossa, which also envisioned the death and dislocation of tens of millions of human beings who were regarded as inconvenient and a security threat. As Stimson wrote to FDR in 1944, the Morgenthau Plan "would be just such a crime as the Germans themselves hoped to perpetrate upon their victims — it would be a crime against civilization itself."

Clausewitz notes that history should inform the commander's selection of ends and means in war. Examination of the history of the USSR from 1917 to 1941 should have indicated that "postwar cooperation with the USSR" was a foolish end to pursue during WW2. Even if one does not accept that, the Morgenthau Plan was not a necessary means to that end. If anything, weakening Germany reduced the USSR's incentive to cooperate after the war - the less threatening Germany was, the less Stalin needed his allies. Nor did history indicate that keeping Germany starving and impoverished was necessary to keep her from starting another war. An industrially and economically strong Germany could be - and in fact, was – successfully partitioned, occupied, and de-Nazified by the Big Three to prevent another outbreak of German aggression.

Overall, the Morgenthau Plan was a monumental moral and political blunder that was thankfully avoided, as well as the antithesis of the Clausewitzian concept of the proper political end towards which military means should be directed.

After James Perry’s lengthy remarks, I had to re-read my comment. It turns out I didn’t suggest that German women and children should be starved to death.

As for my “argument” that the Morgenthau Plan "was certainly an anti-war commitment regarding future wars," this was pretty clearly not meant to apply to the so-called Four Policemen. (By the way, what kind of policemen turn on each other immediately after capturing the criminal? Not particularly good ones, I think.)

Though not included by Mr Perry in his excerpt, the very next sentence suggests my remark was aimed at Germany only. Its reference to “modern Germans” should have been a giveaway. And as Mr Perry himself says, The Plan “was intended only to ensure that Germany engaged in no future wars.” Yes. Precisely. Next time I will parse each antecedent legalistically.

Finally, to keep it short, Mr Perry disagrees emphatically with my “argument” that the Morgenthau Plan sounds like "the sort of ‘far-reaching act of judgment’ Clausewitz believed to be the responsibility of the statesman and commander." He then goes on to argue against a case I never made, presumably in favor of applying Morgenthau’s plan ‘good and hard’ as H. L. Mencken used to say.

Taken at its literal meaning, I simply suggested that measures of such magnitude belong to “statesmen and commanders.” Excluding the occasional strategic corporal, who else should make the really, really big decisions, good or bad? Beyond that, I filed no friendly brief supporting Morgenthau’s or any other plan to salt the earth belonging to defeated enemies, even though my life experience does indicate that such things can sometimes be very effective.

I would like to note that much material surrounding Morgenthau’s plan can be found online at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum in the Diaries of Henry Morgenthau, Jr., April 27, 1933-July 27, 1945 at this link: http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/collections/franklin/index.ph…

I think it’s also worth noting that Henry was not an outlier, and perhaps not even the originator of the plan discussed here. In a meeting with Morgenthau on August 19, 1944, FDR told him, “We have got to be tough with Germany and I mean the German people, not just the Nazis. You either have to castrate the German people or you have got to treat them in such a manner so they can’t just go on reproducing people who want to continue they way they have in the past.”

Morgenthau responded to that with, “Well, Mr. President, nobody is considering the question along those lines in Europe. In England they want to build up Germany so that she can pay reparations.” FDR replied, “What do we want reparations for?” “He left no doubt in my mind,” Morgenthau continued, “that he and I are looking at this thing in the same way, but the people down the line aren’t.”

Referring to my staff experience, this could almost be taken as command guidance. The Plan as ultimately developed followed from this conversation and a memo of 25th of August to FDR discussing military government in Germany that references an Army handbook on occupation government (based on the WWI Rhineland occupation developed by an AEF civil affairs colonel, Irwin L. Hunt). The first draft of the so-called Morgenthau Plan was given to him on September 1 by a Mr. White at Treasury.

We now know the plan was sidelined, but I don’t think anyone can say from this what might have happened if FDR had lived longer. FDR viewed the USSR as the US's natural partner in postwar world leadership and didn't seem to view Churchill's belief that Germany needed to be reconstructed as a European bulwark against the Communists with much favor. Maybe he would have lost his faith in Stalin by 1947 or so, but who can say.

After James Perry’s lengthy remarks, I had to re-read my comment. It turns out I didn’t suggest that German women and children should be starved to death.

As for my “argument” that the Morgenthau Plan "was certainly an anti-war commitment regarding future wars," this was pretty clearly not meant to apply to the so-called Four Policemen. (By the way, what kind of policemen turn on each other immediately after capturing the criminal? Not particularly good ones, I think.)

Though not included by Mr Perry in his excerpt, the very next sentence suggests my remark was aimed at Germany only. Its reference to “modern Germans” should have been a giveaway. And as Mr Perry himself says, The Plan “was intended only to ensure that Germany engaged in no future wars.” Yes. Precisely. Next time I will parse each antecedent legalistically.

Finally, to keep it short, Mr Perry disagrees emphatically with my “argument” that the Morgenthau Plan sounds like "the sort of ‘far-reaching act of judgment’ Clausewitz believed to be the responsibility of the statesman and commander." He then goes on to argue against a case I never made, presumably in favor of applying Morgenthau’s plan ‘good and hard’ as H. L. Mencken used to say.

Taken at its literal meaning, I simply suggested that measures of such magnitude belong to “statesmen and commanders.” Excluding the occasional strategic corporal, who else should make the really, really big decisions, good or bad? Beyond that, I filed no friendly brief supporting Morgenthau’s or any other plan to salt the earth belonging to defeated enemies, even though my life experience does indicate that such things can sometimes be very effective.

I would like to note that much material surrounding Morgenthau’s plan can be found online at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum in the Diaries of Henry Morgenthau, Jr., April 27, 1933-July 27, 1945 at this link: http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/collections/franklin/index.ph…

I think it’s also worth noting that Henry was not an outlier, and perhaps not even the originator of the plan discussed here. In a meeting with Morgenthau on August 19, 1944, FDR told him, “We have got to be tough with Germany and I mean the German people, not just the Nazis. You either have to castrate the German people or you have got to treat them in such a manner so they can’t just go on reproducing people who want to continue they way they have in the past.”

Morgenthau responded to that with, “Well, Mr. President, nobody is considering the question along those lines in Europe. In England they want to build up Germany so that she can pay reparations.” FDR replied, “What do we want reparations for?” “He left no doubt in my mind,” Morgenthau continued, “that he and I are looking at this thing in the same way, but the people down the line aren’t.”

In my experience, this could almost be taken as command guidance. The Plan as ultimately developed followed from this conversation and a memo of 25th of August to FDR discussing military government in Germany that references an Army handbook on occupation government (based on the WWI plan developed by an AEF civil affairs colonel I. L. Hunt). The first draft of the so-called Morgenthau Plan was given to Morgenthau on September 1 by a Mr. White at Treasury.

We now know the plan was sidelined, but I don’t think anyone can say from this what might have happened if FDR had lived longer. FDR viewed the USSR as the US’s natural postwar world leadership partner. (For example, at Yalta FDR and Stalin talked favorably together in private about the demise of the British Empire.) FDR did not view Churchill’s plan to reconstruct Germany as a European bulwark against communism with favor, at least in late 1944. Maybe he would have changed his mind about Stalin by 1947 or so, but who can say.

This is late and I don't know if it will be read. But I thought about the way decisions are arrived at and the way they are carried out.

Once a group of powerful people have made up their minds on something, it develops a life and momentum of its own that is almost impervious to reason or argument. This is particularly true when personal ambition and bravado are involved. In this case even an appeal to fear of ridicule and historical condemnation would not have worked. Decisions had been taken at the highest level, and a vast military machine had been set in motion. It seems to me that generals, as well as politicians, tend to have preconceived ideas about their adversaries that sometimes turn out to be completely misleading. These preconceived ideas are certainly more strongly held if they happen to militate in favor of something they want to do. This may seem simple-minded and fatalistic, but it is something I have gleaned from reading and experience.

A moments regression of sorts, two online sources re: the Vietnam era restrictions on Presidential authority and power, approved by the US Senate but not adopted by the House of Representatives; this, the Cooper-Church Amendment on Nixon's incursion into Cambodia and the Congressional reaction to a possible wider, more sustained war. It does demonstrate that effort to retain a 'limited war' practice which had been such a part of discussions during the era about 'Limited War' doctrine and theory, compared to more general war[largely in context of Cold War with worldwide Communism then].

Would like to also indicate a close reading of the 2nd item, particularly the Johnson era history, will be worthwhile.

So meaningful and important was this event and its subsequent consequences along with the agonies brought about by Vietnam war, out of this first effort, Congress went forward to debate and create the War Powers Act, limiting
Presidential authority and power to conduct warfare. It was a requirement to make Congress a more determining branch in control American wars, not allowing free and unfettered Executive action.
Because of this Congressional Act and assertion of authority over Executive action thru limitation upon it, the below 4 items online are also included here to provide more understanding and background to this history and its consequences. Would submit these lessons are far from completed in how wars are to be thought about, fought and conducted. They also show how Congress can and does limit an Executive which is concluded out of control legally and politically in matters vital to the survival and importance of free governments.
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[1]--
Cooper?Church Amendment - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper%E2%80%93Church_Amendment - 101k - similar pagesThe Cooper?Church Amendment was introduced in the United States Senate during the ... was approved by the Senate by a vote of 58 to 37 on 30 June 1970.
[2]--
How Congress Got Us Out of Vietnam - The American Prospect
https://prospect.org/article/how-congress-got-us-out-vietnam - 181k - similar pagesFeb 19, 2007 ... Russell said the U.S. position was "deteriorating" and that it looked like "the more we .... Church called the amendment a "reassertion of congressional ... But in the spring of 1970, Church and Cooper became concerned that ...

[3-7]--
War Powers Act - HISTORY
https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/war-powers-act - 266k - similar pagesNov 30, 2017 ... The War Powers Act is a congressional resolution designed to limit the U.S. ... In the U.S. Constitution, the power to make war is shared by the executive and ... By the 1970s, however, many lawmakers had grown wary of ...

War Powers Resolution - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution - 187k - similar pagesThe War Powers Resolution (50 U.S.C. 1541?1548) is a federal law intended to check the president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress. The Resolution was adopted in the form of a United States Congress joint ... 1970 Southeast Asia

War Powers | Law Library of Congress | Library of Congress
https://www.loc.gov/law/help/war-powers.php - 77k - similar pagesNov 27, 2017 ... Bibliography from the Law Library of Congress on war powers. ... Washington, U.S. GPO, 1970. ... War Powers Legislation: Hearings.

The War Powers Act of 1973: Definition & Summary - Video ...
https://study.com / academy / lesson / the-war-powers-act-of-19... - 351k - similar pagesMay 24, 2015 ... The War Powers Resolution of 1973 was an attempt to clear up the... ... have to look back at some prior conflicts and at the U.S. Constitution.

What Was the War Powers Resolution of 1973? | History - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=barQHoh3krc - 283k - similar pagesFeb 2, 2018 ... ... of declaring war changed throughout the United States' history? What prompted Congress to enact the War Powers Resolution in the '70s, an ...