On Strategy: The Vietnam War in Context

By Harry G. Summers Jr.

"This important book is one man's critical analysis of American strategy in the Vietnam war. That man, Harry Summers, is an active Army officer who began professional life as an enlisted soldier, knows personally the bayonet-point reality of war, and has thought widely about strategic issues. His commitment to the nation and Army he serves is unstinting." "... Colonel Summers has focused his attention at that point in the strategic continuum where military strategy and national policy come together. His main thesis is that a lack of understanding of the relationship between military strategy and national policy caused us to exhaust our will and endurance against a secondary enemy, the guerrilla movement in South Vietnam, instead of focusing our military efforts to check North Vietnamese expansion in support of our national policy of containment. ..." DeWitt C. Smith, Jr. Lieutenant General, United States Army (Retired)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barakaldo Books
• Release date: Nov 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781839746772

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ON STRATEGY: THE VIETNAM WAR IN CONTEXT

HARRY G. SUMMERS, JR. Colonel of Infantry

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

DEDICATION 6

FOREWORD 7

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 10

INTRODUCTION — TACTICAL VICTORY, STRATEGIC DEFEAT 12

PART I — THE ENVIRONMENT 17

CHAPTER ONE — THE NATIONAL WILL: THE PEOPLE 17

CHAPTER TWO — THE NATIONAL WILL: THE CONGRESS 24

CHAPTER THREE — FRICTION: THE PEOPLE 32

CHAPTER FOUR — FRICTION: THE BUREAUCRACY 38

CHAPTER FIVE — FRICTION: THE DANGER 46

CHAPTER SIX — FRICTION: THE DOCTRINE 52

CHAPTER SEVEN  FRICTION: THE DOGMA 57

PART II — THE ENGAGEMENT 63

CHAPTER EIGHT — TACTICS, GRAND TACTICS, AND STRATEGY 63

CHAPTER NINE — THE OBJECTIVE 70

CHAPTER TEN — THE OFFENSIVE 80

CHAPTER ELEVEN — MASS, ECONOMY OF FORCE, AND MANEUVER 92

CHAPTER TWELVE — UNITY OF COMMAND 101

CHAPTER THIRTEEN — SECURITY AND SURPRISE 108

CHAPTER FOURTEEN — SIMPLICITY 113

CHAPTER FIFTEEN — COALITION WARFARE 117

EPILOGUE — TO PROVIDE FOR THE COMMON DEFENSE 127

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 139

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 140

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 150

DEDICATION

To GENERAL WALTER T. KERWIN, JR. (United States Army, Retired) whose deep and abiding concern for the future of the United States Army and the Nation it; serves was the original inspiration for this work.

FOREWORD

This important book is one man’s critical analysis of American strategy in the Vietnam war. That man, Harry Summers, is an active Army officer who began professional life as an enlisted soldier, knows personally the bayonet-point reality of war, and has thought widely about strategic issues. His commitment to the nation and Army he serves is unstinting.

This work has become somewhat controversial even before its publication. Perhaps that was to be expected in anything having to do with such a subject. In Vietnam we won the battles and lost the war; brave and good men and women, whom we knew and loved, died there; and, at home, a nation was disunited and fellow citizens were set against each other in a way unique in our history.

This book has become controversial for another reason as well. In a necessarily hierarchical and relatively closed institution, and especially one whose members endured a bitter war without the full support of all their fellow citizens, there are inevitably some who think it presumptuous, troublesome or wrong for an active colonel, working with the support of the Army and its War College, to be critical.

But I count this controversy and the perhaps premature criticism of this work as symptoms of success. At the same time thoughtful leaders of the Army General Staff were identifying the need for works such as this one, some at Carlisle also had begun preliminary work in 1974 directed at the same ends. We felt that we had a professional obligation to seek to understand the Vietnam war, to learn from it, and to help prepare the Army to serve more effectively in the future as the result of that effort. The Training and Doctrine Command already had set an admirable tactical focus on the future, based on the lessons of Vietnam. Others were, and still are, at work on histories. Critical strategic appraisal remained to be begun.

On Strategy: Vietnam in Context is the beginning of just such a critical strategic appraisal. Colonel Summers has focused his attention at that point in the strategic continuum where military strategy and national policy come together. His main thesis is that a lack of understanding of the relationship between military strategy and national policy caused us to exhaust our will and endurance against a secondary enemy, the guerrilla movement in South Vietnam, instead of focusing our military efforts to check North Vietnamese expansion in support of our national policy of containment. That view can be contested but it is worth considering. This book by no means represents the ultimate judgment, nor is it without flaws. But it exists, it is good, it begins something, it attacks intellectual and professional inertia, and it challenges others to do their own thinking and writing so that the United States Army, the other armed forces, and the nation may be better served in years to come.

No profession owns its own soul, or can lay claim to enduring professional responsibility and worth, unless it is sufficiently open, thoughtful, self-assured and courageous to support self-analysis and criticism. Plato once observed that The life that is unexamined is not worth living. Something of the same may be said of professions and institutions. At the same time, in speaking of criticism, it is well to remember the injunction found in an ancient Chinese proverb: Don’t curse the darkness—light a candle. That is what Harry Summers has tried to do.

I have said that this book is not perfect or all-inclusive and others will share that view, each from his own perspective. It is not a historical treatment. It is very much one man’s opinion, although it does adduce substantial testimony in support of the author’s viewpoint. Some may feel that it puts too much blame on political and social shortcomings, and not enough on the substantial faults which the war revealed within the armed forces themselves. Still others may find it unsubstantial, or unappreciative in dealing with counterinsurgency and the tactical war. And my own special concern is that it seems not to stress enough the enormous force, depth, and consequence of the moral judgment which many good Americans made against the war itself even when they were sensitive to the decency, valor and commitment of most who fought in Vietnam. In the profoundest sense, this judgment constituted a strategic influence seldom if ever experienced by Americans or their soldiers before.

Having set forth these reservations, I return finally to my earlier, net assessment of Colonel Summers’ work. It is the product of hard work, hard thought, and some good writing. It is the professional responsibility of a good Army to learn from any war, and especially from one such as this. In this book, the author seeks to discharge his part of that responsibility. So far as I know, this is the first such, overall effort undertaken within any of our armed forces. It relies heavily on Clausewitz and the traditional principles of war, an approach which personally I find interesting, instructive and still relevant. It does not support de Toqueville’s view that The remedy for the vices of the Army is not to be found in the Army itself, but in the country. Rather this work suggests that we are all responsible and must play courageous and responsible roles in devising national strategy, carrying it out, accepting responsibility for it, and turning yesterday’s mistakes into better preparation for tomorrow.

The armed forces of tomorrow are served best today by open professional inquiry and debate. Such professional responsibility also keeps faith with the largely good and brave young Americans whose unsung honor in the Vietnam war was to obey the laws and uphold the commitments of their country rather than to seek pretentiously moral sanctuary in some other land, to hide, or to side openly with the enemy.

This book constitutes both a professional contribution of estimable value and a professional challenge of genuine importance. To the extent that other soldiers now enter thoughtfully into open analysis and debate of all that we have yet to learn or express from the Vietnam war experience, and to the extent that they do this within an integrated strategic framework, with their eyes on the woods and not the trees...to these extents Harry Summers once again will have earned his pay, and the Army once again will have asserted its professional worth and served the country well.

DeWITT C. SMITH, JR.

Lieutenant-General, US Army, Retired

17 January 1981

Carlisle, Pennsylvania

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was first proposed in the spring of 1975 by then Vice Chief of Staff General Walter T. Kerwin, Jr. as a continuation of the effort to revitalize strategic thinking in the post-Vietnam Army begun by the former Army Chief of Staff, the late General Creighton Abrams, and Lieutenant-General Donald Cowles, his deputy for military operations and plans (the Army’s G3). It continued with the support and encouragement of three successive Army Chiefs of Staff and their G3’s—General Fred C. Weyand, General Bernard W. Rogers, General Edward C. Meyer (both as G3 and as Chief of Staff), General John W. Vessey, Jr (both as G3 and as Vice Chief of Staff) and Lieutenant-General Glenn K. Otis.

The task of making a critical analysis of our Vietnam-war strategy was given to the US Army War College. In so doing, the Army went full circle, for 74 years earlier Secretary of War Elihu Root had founded the Army War College to examine the Spanish-American war debacle. Then the failure was in preparation for war, now the failure appeared to be in the conduct of war proper. With the personal interest and guidance of the Commandants of the Army War College, particularly Lieutenant-General DeWitt C. Smith, Jr., the foundation for this work began to be laid. The War College’s Strategic Studies Institute under the direction of Colonel Joseph E. Pizzi and later Colonel Andrew C. Remson, Jr. sponsored the collection of data, including a series of monographs on the war. This effort was coordinated by Colonel Thomas A. Ware and later Colonel Sanders A. Cortner, with the assistance of Mrs. Pauline Juba Baumgartner. Under Army contract the BDM Corporation of McLean Virginia searched the available literature and interviewed many of the senior participants, both military and civilian. Their effort—over 3,500 pages in some eight volumes—have provided valuable background information for this book and have been distributed to the other Senior Service Colleges and Command and Staff Schools to aid researchers on the Vietnam war.

As the book began to take shape in the spring of 1980, in-progress drafts were furnished to a number of Army officers, both here at the War College and throughout the Army, who had been involved in the articulation, formulation, and execution of military strategy. Among those who provided comments and suggestions were Generals Andrew P. O’Meara, Bruce Palmer, Jr., and Richard G. Stilwell (USA Retired), Lieutenant-Generals John H. Elder and William B. Fulton (USA, Retired); Major-General Jack N. Merritt, now Commandant of the US Army War College; Major-General Richard L. Prillaman; Brigadier Generals Dallas C. Brown, Jr., Dave R. Palmer and Dale A. Vesser; Colonel Donald W. Shaw, Director US Army Military History Institute; Chaplain (Colonel) Charles Kriete, Colonels Zane Finkelstein, Charles Hines, Thomas Leggett, Donald Lunday, Henrik Lunde, Dandridge (Mike) Malone, Lloyd Matthews, Ramone Nadal, Andrew Remson and Joseph Sites, Major David Russell and Captain James Waters of the Army War College Staff and Faculty; Colonel Roger MacLeod and Lieutenant Colonels Creighton Abrams, Ronald Griffith, William Orlov and Thomas Rhen of the Army War College Classes of 1980 and 1981; Lieutenant-Colonel William Stofft and the members of the Combat Studies Institute US Army Command and General Staff College; and Colonel Andrew P. O’Meara and Major Charles Scribner of the Army General Staff.

In addition to the Army reviewers, comments were also received from Oxford University Professor Michael Howard, Georgetown University Professor Edward N. Luttwak, Congressional Staffer William S. Lind, author and strategist John M. Collins and Herbert Y. Schandler, as well as Department of State Representative Frank E. Cash, Central Intelligence Agency Representative James Dimon and Mrs. Marianne Cowling of the Army War College Staff and Faculty.

Particular thanks goes to Colonel Wallace P. Franz, United States Army Reserve. A former member of the consulting faculty of the US Army Command and General Staff College now on active duty with the Army War College faculty, he served as an infantry company commander in the Korean war and as a district advisor in Vietnam. Colonel Franz, an avid military historian and student of military tactics and strategy, was the source of much of the detailed information on the evolution of military theory. His critical page-by-page review of this work added much to the clarity of the final product.

Thanks must also go to my wife, Eloise, and our two sons, Captain Harry G. Summers, III and First Lieutenant David C. Summers, United States Army, whose comments provided a unique perspective and who were the inspiration for this attempt to help make their Army of the future a more effective instrument for national security.

A final word of thanks to Mrs. Lisa A. Ney who typed and retyped the many drafts of this book and who prepared the final manuscript for printing and publication.

In expressing my thanks to those who provided comments and advice I must add that the conclusions and such errors as this book contains are solely my responsibility.

H.G.S.

Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania

3 April 1981

INTRODUCTION — TACTICAL VICTORY, STRATEGIC DEFEAT

You know you never defeated us on the battlefield, said the American colonel.

The North Vietnamese colonel pondered this remark a moment. That may be so, he replied, but it is also irrelevant.

Conversation in Hanoi, April 1975{1}

One of the most frustrating aspects of the Vietnam war from the Army’s point of view is that as far as logistics and tactics were concerned we succeeded in everything we set out to do. At the height of the war the Army was able to move almost a million soldiers a year in and out of Vietnam, feed them, clothe them, house them, supply them with arms and ammunition, and generally sustain them better than any Army had ever been sustained in the field. To project an Army of that size halfway around the world was a logistics and management task of enormous magnitude, and we had been more than equal to the task. On the battlefield itself, the Army was unbeatable. In engagement after engagement the forces of the Viet Cong and of the North Vietnamese Army were thrown back with terrible losses. Yet, in the end, it was North Vietnam, not the United States, that emerged victorious. How could we have succeeded so well, yet failed so miserably? That disturbing question was the reason for this book.

At least part of the answer appears to be that we saw Vietnam as unique rather than in strategic context. This misperception grew out of our neglect of military strategy in the post-World War II nuclear era. Almost all of the professional literature on military strategy was written by civilian analysts—political scientists from the academic world and systems analysts from the Defense community. In his book War and Politics, political scientist Bernard Brodie devoted an entire chapter to the lack of professional military strategic thought. The same criticism was made by systems analysts Alain C. Enthoven and K. Wayne Smith who commented: Military professionals are among the most infrequent contributors to the basic literature on military strategy and defense policy. Most such contributors are civilians...{2} Even the Army’s so-called new strategy of flexible response grew out of civilian, not military, thinking.

This is not to say that the civilian strategists were wrong. The political scientists provided a valuable service in tying war to its political ends. They provided answers to why the United States ought to wage war. In like manner the systems analysts provided answers on what means we would use. What was missing was the link that should have been provided by the military strategists—how to take the systems analyst’s means and use them to achieve the political scientist’s ends.

But instead of providing professional military advice on how to fight the war the military more and more joined with the systems analysts in determining the material means we were to use. Indeed, the conventional wisdom among many Army officers was that the Army doesn’t make strategy, and there is no such thing as Army strategy. There was a general feeling that strategy was budget-driven and was primarily a function of resource allocation. The task of the Army, in their view, was to design and procure material, arms and equipment and to organize, train, and equip soldiers for the Defense Establishment.

These attitudes derive in part from a shallow interpretation of the Army’s mission. While it is true that the National Security Act transferred operational command to the Department of Defense, leaving the Army with the task to organize, train, and equip active duty and reserve forces, the Army General Staff is still charged with determination of roles and missions of the Army and strategy formulation, plans and application; Joint Service matters, plans, and operations...{3} In addition, Army officers assigned to the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to J-3 and J-5 positions in unified commands also have responsibility for Army (i.e., land force) strategy. Further, to argue as some do that in our democracy only the President can make strategy is to confuse the issue, since in most cases the President does not formulate military strategy but rather decides on the military strategy recommended to him by his national security advisors, both military and civilian.

Unconsciously, such attitudes reflected a regression in military thought. As early as 1971 then Lieutenant-Colonel Albert Sidney Britt III, Department of History, United States Military Academy, noted that the modern philosophy of limited war derives in part from the practice of the 18th century.{4} Colonel Britt’s observations were borne out in the classic critique of 18th century warfare, Carl von Clausewitz’s On War. His 150-year old description of the art of war closely paralleled the conditions bitterly attacked by such critics as Richard Gabriel and Paul Savage in their widely quoted book Crisis in Command (New York: Hill & Wang, 1978)—an army more concerned with management than with military strategy. Describing these conditions, Clausewitz said:

[In the 18th century] the terms art of war or science of war were used to designate only the total body of knowledge and skill that was concerned with material factors. The design and use of weapons...the internal organization of the army, and the mechanism of its movements constituted the substance of this knowledge and skill.{5}

Using this criterion for the art and science of war, it can be argued that the system worked, that it did everything that it was asked to do. Such arguments are the Army’s version of Leslie H. Gelb and Richard K. Betts’ analysis of the Vietnam-era political-bureaucratic system. Examining the structure of the system, they found that it did everything that it was designed to do.{6} If the Army is, as some would have it, merely a logistics and management system designed to organize, train, and equip active duty and reserve forces, it was an unqualified success.

The illogic of such an analysis springs from a faulty understanding of military theory. In his clarification of military theory Clausewitz said, "The activities characteristic of war may be split into two main categories: those that are merely preparation for war, and war proper. All that is required from the first group, he said, is the end product—trained and equipped fighting forces. The theory of war proper, on the other hand, is concerned with the use of these means, once they have been developed, for the purposes of the war."{7} During the Vietnam war we confused these two activities. There are those who would have it that the reason was that there were so many conflicting definitions of strategy that we lost our way. But such an excuse is not supported by the facts. According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, the official definition of military strategy is "the art and’ science of employing the armed forces of a nation to secure the objectives of national policy by the application of force, or the