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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (39271)	12/4/2009 4:29:42 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Respond to of 71588

The weight they bought to bear meant they were less agile. Yes and no. When they did operate as light infantry (and they where far more likely to do this than the regular forces of the US, South Vietnam, or the other allies who pitched in smaller forces), they could move faster on foot. OTOH air mobile forces where agile in a different way, and direct air power itself can be applied quickly to different areas. Some of their ability to pick and choose battlefields was due to the fact that they often operated in small "agile" units of light infantry. Some was because of the infiltration mentioned elsewhere in the article. Some was because of the way the US operated, with limits on where and when we could attack, and any major "escalation" becoming a political issue. The NVA was a light infantry force. No it wasn't, it had tanks, artillery, and other heavy equipment. Sometimes it operated as a light infantry force (which is perhaps what Friedman meant) while the Americans where still in the fight, since light infantry is easier to hide but even then it had heavier stuff in operational or strategic reserve, and used it against the US on a number of occasions. After we started to leave it used it in a big way, but the ARVN ground forces and US air power, destroyed much of the invasion force. Later, after we had left completely, stopped air support, and even stopped resupply, after the effort was zero funded, than a 2nd large conventional invasion with tanks, artillery, aircraft, etc. defeated the ARVN, who had been trained to fight in a more American style with lavish resupply (at least compared to the other forces in the area), and air support. Losing that support made their tactics and training less effective, and also was a big blow to morale. Infiltration was a big problem with the Vietnamization plan, but probably the biggest was simply that it took so long. In many ways it was working, but by then Americans had lost patience with the war. We have the resources to get wars wrong for a time and still turn things around, where a lesser nation would be defeated by the mistakes, but those resources will be pulled out of the fight if we don't get it right quick enough. Vietnam was a good example, it had just dragged on to long, and the effort lost the confidence of the American people. The main difference in Afghanistan is that there is no "North Afghanistan" to invade and take over when we leave, so if we can bring Afghani forces even up to the (often derided) level of the ARVN, and the various South Vietnamese police forces of the early 70s, there is real hope for Afghanistanization. But whether we can do even that much before a pullout, is an open question. The infiltration and intelligence issues mentioned in the article affect the effort to do so. Obama mentioned Pakistan's critical role. Clearly, he understands the lessons of Vietnam regarding sanctuary, and so he made it clear that he expects Pakistan to engage and destroy Taliban forces on its territory and to deny Afghan Taliban supplies, replacements and refuge. He cited the Swat and South Waziristan offensives as examples of the Pakistanis' growing effectiveness. While this is a significant piece of his strategy, the Pakistanis must play another role with regard to intelligence. I agree with all of that.