Thank you -- what an excellent post: <This boyish adventure side of counterinsurgency died on the battlefields of Vietnam. As the war ground on, the Americans started echoing the harsher tactics of the Viet Cong, particularly the targeting of enemy collaborators for assassination. In the infamous Phoenix Program that began in 1967, a direct outgrowth of counterinsurgency, the American government paid for the murder of thousands of civilians allegedly tied to the Viet Cong. This was precisely the type of program that turned many Americans against the Vietnam War (though US-backed military forces went on to use similarly bloody techniques elsewhere, notably in Guatemala). Writing in The New Yorker recently, Seymour Hersh worried that the ''preemptive manhunting'' of insurgents in Iraq may replicate the horrors of the Phoenix Program.
Counterinsurgency might have had some short-term success in Vietnam, but it was a long-term failure. Numbed by years of killing, South Vietnamese peasants adopted a quietist philosophy that rejected both sides of the conflict. When the North Vietnamese launched a conventional offensive in 1975, South Vietnam couldn't rally its own population to resist.
As the specter of protracted guerrilla warfare raises its head in Iraq, it's worth recalling the mixed lessons of the past. Successful counterinsurgency involves a deep familiarity with the local culture, which is difficult to gain on the fly. Gaining political legitimacy is the key to successfully defeating an insurgency, yet building such popular support can take years if not decades. Moreover, there's an inevitable tension between obtaining security for one's troops and winning popular support. Iraq, with its shadowy enemy of uncertain ideology, is very different from Vietnam. However, the troubling legacy of that conflict should cast doubt that there will be any easy or quick solution this time either.> |
