July 8, 2004
SECOND IN A SERIES
IRAQ & VIETNAM: DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER
AGAIN?
By Andrew Krepinevich
SUMMARY
The Vietnam War left deep scars on America’s national psyche, its political
leaders, and, most of all, its military. In the three decades since the end of US
military involvement in that war, no conflict has been referred to more often
than Vietnam, either in the United States or by its enemies. Americans and
their military fear being tied down in another quagmire, where victory is
elusive and the light at the end of the tunnel appears distant, if not receding.
America’s enemies see “another Vietnam” as their best hope of defeating the
juggernaut that is the US military.
Fears of “another Vietnam” were on display during the US involvement
in counterinsurgency warfare in El Salvador during the 1980s, and animated
demands for an “exit strategy” when US troops were sent to low-intensity
conflicts in places like Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia in the 1990s. Now concerns
are expressed as to whether ongoing US stability operations in Iraq—by far the
largest since Vietnam—risk trapping American forces in another protracted
conflict where victory is elusive, if not impossible.
Is Iraq “another Vietnam?” If the similarities are high, a strong case
might be made that the United States should cut its losses in Iraq, and seek
some form of “peace with honor.” However, if the case is mixed, or if the
similarities between the conflicts are low, then perhaps such comparisons are
more a reflection of nagging, old wounds than new dangers—a willingness to
give counsel to old fears, rather than confront new realities. At the outset,
however, it is also important to note that a thorough analysis of the prospects
for success, or failure, in Iraq would need to look far beyond a simple
comparison of the two conflicts. Thus the following assessment is an attempt
to inform the debate over our policies in Iraq, rather than resolve it.
The conflicts in Iraq and the Vietnam War have several important
similarities:
§ In both cases the United States confronted an enemy intent in pursuing a
protracted conflict with an eye toward seizing power after the American
military’s departure.
