Vietnam and Iraq

Between pundits who tell us there are no similarities between Vietnam and Iraq and pundits who tell us they couldn't be more alike, it's hard to know what we learned in Vietnam that's applicable to the conflict in Iraq today. Dale Andrade, a historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History writes in the Washington Post today about some of the lessons of Vietnam. First of all, he tells us why current enthusiasm over "clear and hold" in some circles is unwarranted:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice invoked it during Senate testimony in October, and columnist David Ignatius reported in his Nov. 4 op-ed that many Army officers are reading historian Lewis Sorley's book "A Better War," which argues that the United States could have prevailed in Vietnam if the military had used Gen. Creighton Abrams's ideas earlier in the war. This simplistic notion may resonate in Washington, but it means little to troops on the ground. Marines in Fallujah or soldiers in Baghdad or near the Syrian border will tell you that they have been "clearing" areas for more than a year now, but "holding" them is a different matter. That takes a lot of troops, not small teams.

Troops which we don't have, of course. There's no doubt that our soldiers are more than capable of routing the insurgents in any significant fight in any city in Iraq; witness Fallujah parts I and II, Ramadi, Samarra, and so on. The problem is that almost the very moment troubled is quelled in one spot, it arises in another, and troops end up leaving the city for the most part to Iraqi security forces which have so far proven inadequate. However, Andrade says there are things we did right in Vietnam which can be applied to Iraq or any counter-insurgency effort. His examples are worth quoting at length:

First, there must be a unified structure that combines military and civilian pacification efforts. In Vietnam that organization was called CORDS, for Civil Operations and Rural Development Support. Formed in 1967, it placed the disjointed and ineffective civilian pacification programs under the military.

In Afghanistan, the provincial reconstruction teams have viewed CORDS as a model, but there is no truly integrated system yet. In Iraq, the old Coalition Provisional Authority suffered from the same problems that caused the formation of CORDS, in particular a dual chain of command that failed to coordinate military and civilian efforts. Not enough has been done since the CPA's dissolution in 2004 to integrate nation-building into military planning.

In many ways the CPA was an utter failure, and this is one of them. The CPA and the military frequently operated as two separate entities merely co-existing in the same country. And nation-building was never properly studied before the invasion or implemented after the invasion by either military or civilian authorities. Even now, as our armed forces enter their fourth year of operations in Afghanistan and third year in Iraq, one would be hard pressed to find any serious focus on nation building in the military. Nor is it a term anyone in the Bush administration will utter; when the focus is on how to get out of Iraq, it's hardly surprising that no one's putting any serious study into how to rebuild broken or failed states.

The second lesson involves attacking the enemy's center of gravity. An insurgency thrives only if it can maintain a permanent presence among the population, which in Vietnam was called the Viet Cong infrastructure, or VCI. This covert presence used carrot and stick -- promises of reform and threats of violence -- to take control of large chunks of the countryside. U.S. planners were aware of VCI, but until 1968 only the CIA paid it much attention. Under CORDS, however, the United States implemented the much-maligned Phoenix program, which targeted VCI and resulted in the capture or killing (mostly capture) of more than 80,000 VCI guerrillas. Criticisms of Phoenix abound, and there were many problems with the system, but the fact is that a counterinsurgency plan that ignores the guerrilla infrastructure is no plan at all.

The Phoenix program is maligned for good reason. It was largely aimed at capturing or assassinating Viet Cong leaders and due largely to faulty or inadequate intelligence, efforts to meet quotas and general abuse it resulted in the mistaken killing of thousands of civilian Vietnamese who were not members of the Viet Cong. Opinions differ on to what extent the program was a failure or a success, and certainly the assassination of innocent Iraqis will by no means bring the insurgency to an end. But Andrade is right to say that adequate intelligence, followed by a campaign which aims to subvert the recruitment of insurgents, should be a goal of the U.S. military and Iraqi forces. Unfortunately such intelligence is lacking, and there's no sign that our military is or will become any better at acquiring it.

Finally, it is crucial to form militias in order to raise the staff necessary to maintain a permanent government presence in dangerous areas. This is the only way "clear and hold" has any hope of working. Even an eventual U.S. troop strength of more than 500,000 and a similar number of South Vietnamese soldiers were not enough to take the countryside from the insurgents. But the early creation of a territorial militia helped return a government presence to the countryside. These militia members were recruited in villages and paid by the government; they lived in the areas where they operated, making it more difficult for the Viet Cong to settle among the population. Their numbers also reached 500,000, thanks partly to early participation by U.S. advisers. Although the militia's performance was sometimes lacking, overall it was an important part of the pacification
program.

In Afghanistan and Iraq the lack of government-controlled militias is a serious weakness, and the United States has not pushed for their formation. Militias exist in both countries, but they are often loyal to warlords (Afghanistan) or under the command of various ethnic or religious groups (Iraq). Their allegiance to the government is questionable.

Of course there are militias in Iraq. But they're not the kind that Andrade envisions. Rather then being home-grown security patrols, these militias are large, well-armed groups of young men loyal to their various sects, factions or leaders, such as the Badr Brigade or the Mahdi Army or the Kurdish Peshmerga. The forces at play in Iraq include these militias, Iraqi security forces (frequently infiltrated by the militias), the insurgents, and U.S. and coalition forces. I am not aware of any large scale effort to arm the Iraqis so that they can protect themselves from insurgent infiltration. Nor is it likely that such a program would suceed. The South Vietnamese government competed with the Viet Cong for the loyalty of its citizens. In Iraq, most Iraqis are already loyal to one faction or another, or prefer to stay out of the way. It's not likely the Iraqi government could hope to create local militias capable of defending themselves against insurgent and jihadist attacks in such conditions.

Andrade himself doesn't sound entirely convinced that his lessons, as applied to Iraq, will produce a pacified Iraq anytime soon. But there's a larger point to be made. Despite the ultimate failure in Vietnam, we learned crucial lessons in how to battle an insurgency, and those lessons are for the most part being ignored today. In this instance, ignorance of our own recent history may doom us to repeat the loss in Vietnam.