re: strategies against guerrilla warfare:
<it leads to very high American casualties. You end up with huge numbers of easily overrun targets>
Casualties are lessened by:
1. starting the campaign in areas with the least guerrilla activity. Then, slowly, the guerrilla-free area is expanded, still avoiding the guerrilla strongholds, slowly surrounding them. Only then, do you move into their core areas, slowly closing a series of ever-smaller concentric circles. Americans want quick victories, their instinct is to aim at the heart of the enemy position from the start; the HeartsAndMinds (H&M) strategy won't work if we do that.
2. Go Slow. This method works over a period of many years, perhaps even decades. Again, it runs counter to the American love of Blitzkrieg. Every village, before U.S. soldiers are committed, would have spent some time (again, this time is years, not weeks) in the "halo" of our existing guerrilla-free zone, so much of the ideological indoctrination happens before our soldiers are committed.
3. Only a fraction of our army is tied down in these static small positions. The rest of the army (most of it, actually), still uses the conventional-war high-mobility, overwhelming-firepower tactics. Every team in every village has a radio, and can call in support at need.
4. If we are winning the HeartsAndMinds campaign, then the number of surprise attacks should be greatly diminished. The locals will act as our EyesAndEars, which means we have several orders of magnitude more EyesAndEars spread in a net around our positions. That's the real "net-war". In Vietnam, the enemy was able to routinely surround and overrun small positions, precisely because we lost the H&M campaign.
5. It is much harder to win a H&M campaign, if you allow the enemy a large Safe Haven, from which they can endlessly trickle reinforcements into the adjacent battlefield. I don't mean a DistantSponsor, who sends money and weapons. I mean an area that can supply large numbers of recruits who can melt into the civilians on the battlefield. In 1965, we should have landed the Marines at Haiphong, not Hue, and driven on Hanoi. Yes, that would have reduced casualties, in the long run. It would have been a big conventional battle, and we would have won it. For the rest of the war, the Communist's efforts would have gone entirely to re-taking Hanoi; there would have been nothing left to send down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. We fortify a perimeter around those two cities, and outlast them. Try a H&M campaign within the perimeter; if that doesn't work, expel the entire hostile civilian population within our perimeter. Tell General Giap that we will withdraw from Hanoi, when all guerrilla activity has stopped in S. Vietnam, all communist sympathizers have been repatriated to N. Vietnam, the DMZ has been extended westward to the Thai border (and patrolled by a well-armed permanent UN force). And, once we withdraw, tell him we'll be back, at the first violation of those terms. Once a guerrilla army gets a big untouchable SafeHaven, their victory is just a matter of time.
6. With all that said, you are absolutely correct that the H&M method puts a lot of ground troops at high risk, for a prolonged period of time. The simple, brutal question is: how much is it worth to us? If we aren't willing to pay the cost (and if that potential cost hasn't been explained very very clearly to the home front), then we shouldn't commit one soldier. Use the MotherTest: If you can't sit down with the mother of every soldier who didn't come back, look her in the eye, and explain to her what her son or daughter died for, in a way that makes sense to her, then you made a mistake sending that soldier in Harm'sWay. Afghanistan, WWII, the Civil War, and the Revolutionary War pass the MotherTest. IMO, none of our other wars, from the War of 1812 to Iraq II, pass the Test. The fact that our military/civilian leaders are now so exquisitely sensitive about U.S. combat deaths, (like using proxies in Afghanistan even though that meant Bin Laden eluded us), means they want to avoid eye contact with American mothers.
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Anyone who thinks I am an advocate of unilateral disarmament, isolationism, passivity, or surrender, I'll just refer them to this post. I believe the path to Victory is all-encompassing Engagement, an intimate study of the enemy, and developing the Will To Win at home. And a totally different set of beliefs and tactics than currently being used. |
