Embedded Files
From: Mike High <mike.high@earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 7:45 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Short notice, but there is a webcast option for this symposium on “Why We Lost Vietnam, Revisited” with Sorley, Gentile, Ricks, and Daddis.
(The title is uninspiring, but it sounds like the discussion will transcend it.)
:: Mike High
????
Khuê van các
Independent Research Facility
Great Falls, VA
USA
Event web page: http://www.fpri.org/events/2013/02/why-we-lost-vietnam-revisited
To register for live attendance email: events@fpri.org
To register for webcast: https://cc.readytalk.com/r/jm9ayjemevi4 <https://cc.readytalk.com/r/jm9ayjemevi4>
From: Foreign Policy Research Institute <fpri@fpri.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 3:30 AM
Subject: Symposium/Webcast on Why We Lost Vietnam, Revisited
Announcing a Symposium and Webcast on
WHY WE LOST VIETNAM, REVISITED
A Panel Discussion sponsored by the Foreign Policy Research Institute
and by the Reserve Officers Association
Thursday, February 21, 2013
1:45 p.m. Registration; 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. Program
ROA, One Constitution Avenue, NE, Washington, DC
Free and Open to the Public
Reservations required
Also available thru webcast/teleconference
Featuring
Lewis Sorley
Author of Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam
Gian Gentile
Author of Wrong Turn: America’s Deadly Embrace of Counterinsurgency
Tom Ricks
Author of The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today
Gregory Daddis
Author of No Sure Victory: Measuring U.S. Army Effectiveness and Progress in the Vietnam War
Moderated By:
Mackubin "Mac" Owens, Editor of Orbis
Nearly four decades after the last American soldier left Vietnam,
a debate still rages concerning the cause of the American defeat
in that war. An influential narrative holds that the United States
could never have won in Vietnam given the nature of the war and
the commitment on the part of the Vietnamese communists. But
over the past 20 years, a number of observers have called this
narrative into question. Some military writers have argued that the
US defeat in Vietnam can be traced to a flawed national strategy,
which they blame mostly on civilian policy makers. But more recently,
influential analysts, both military and civilian, have indicted the
military itself for the failure, blaming military leadership for adopting
a defective operational strategy.
This FPRI/ROA workshop addresses the latter argument by assessing
the issue of Army generalship in Vietnam. The four panelists are well
equipped to undertake this assessment. Three are soldier-scholars,
combat veterans with PhDs who have grappled with this topic for many
years: Lewis Sorley, Gian Gentile, and Gregory Daddis. One is a
seasoned national security journalist who has spent decades observing
the US military during war and peace, Tom Ricks. While the discussion
will not resolve the debate, it will certainly enable reasonable observers
to refine their own views.
The program is free but reservations are required. RSVP to events@fpri.org
To register for the webcast, visit: https://cc.readytalk.com/r/jm9ayjemevi4 <https://cc.readytalk.com/r/jm9ayjemevi4>
About the Panelists
Dr. Lewis Sorley is an award winning author and military historian.
His most recent book, Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam,
was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in October 2011. A former
soldier and civilian official of the Central Intelligence Agency, Dr. Sorley
has also served on the faculties at West Point and the Army War
College. His Army assignments included leadership of tank and
armored cavalry units in Germany, Vietnam, and the United States
and staff positions in the offices of the Secretary of Defense and the
Army Chief of Staff. Dr. Sorley is an Emeritus Director of the Army
Historical Foundation and is Executive Director Emeritus of the
Association of Military Colleges and Schools of the United States.
COL Gian Gentile is an associate professor of history and director of
the military history program at the United States Military Academy at
West Point. An award-winning historian, he is the author of
How Effective is Strategic Bombing? Lessons Learned from World
War II to Kosovo. Gentile formerly commanded a combat battalion
in West Baghdad in 2006. His new book on counter-insurgency is
due out in April 2013.
Thomas E. Ricks is a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American
Security (CNAS). Mr. Ricks also writes an online blog for
ForeignPolicy.com <http://foreignpolicy.com/> called “The Best Defense, and is the author of the
new book, The Generals: American Military Command from World
War II to Today, published by The Penguin Press. He is also the author
of the bestselling books, The Gamble: General Petraeus and the
American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-08 (Penguin, 2009) and
Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005
(Penguin, 2006), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2007.
Prior to joining CNAS, Mr. Ricks covered the U.S. military for
The Washington Post from 2000 through 2008 and the Wall Street
Journal from 1982 through 1999.
Gregory A. Daddis is Academy Professor of History at the United States
Military Academy, West Point, and a Colonel in the US Army. A West Point
graduate, he has served in numerous army command and staff positions
in the United States and overseas and is a veteran of both Operations
Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. He is the author of the 2011 book,
No Sure Victory: Measuring U.S. Army Effectiveness and Progress in
the Vietnam War.
Mackubin "Mac" Owens is Editor of Orbis, FPRI's quarterly journal of
international affairs, and is a Senior Fellow in its Program on National
Security. He is also Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval
War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He served as a Marine infantry
platoon commander in Vietnam (1968-69), where he was twice wounded
and awarded the Silver Star medal. Dr. Owens earned his Ph.D. from the
University of Dallas. He is co-editor of the textbook, Strategy and Force
Planning, now in its fourth edition, and author of Abraham Lincoln:
Leadership and Democratic Statesmanship in Wartime
(FPRI E-Book, 2009) and U.S. Civil-Military Relations After 9/11 (2011).
For more information, contact:
Harry Richlin
Tel: (215) 732-3774 x102
Email: hr@fpri.org.
Foreign Policy Research Institute
1528 Walnut Street, Suite 610
Philadelphia, PA 19102-3684
www.fpri.org <http://www.fpri.org> .
----------
From: Oscar Salemink <o.salemink@anthro.ku.dk>
Date: Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 1:41 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Pardon the silly question, but who exactly lost Vietnam?
Oscar Salemink
Professor in the Anthropology of Asia
Department of Anthropology
Faculty of Social Sciences
University of Copenhagen
Øster Farimagsgade 5
1353 København K.
Denmark
----------
From: Eric Henry <henryhme@bellsouth.net>
Date: Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 2:28 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
"Who lost Vietnam?"
A very open-ended question, it seems to me, that could be understood in countless different ways, and could lead to endless debates. I am tempted to say "The Vietnamese people lost Vietnam when the Viet Minh hijacked their revolution against the French and Japanese, and killed off or drove away members of rival parties in the five or six years subsequent to 1945." But that may be excessively polemical. Among the peoples of the earth, how many are "in possession" of the nations in which they live?
But now I see from the title of the Webcast that "we" (that is to say, Americans) are the one's who supposedly "lost" Vietnam. That seems to me ridiculous.
Eric Henry, PhD
Senior Lecturer (retired)
Asian Studies Department
CB 3267
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3267
----------
From: Oscar Salemink <o.salemink@anthro.ku.dk>
Date: Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 2:45 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Well, Eric: that was exactly my point.
Many different people inside and outside of Vietnam might have all sorts of grievances for right or wrong reasons. But the referent of ‘we’ here seems to be ‘Americans’, which of course begs the question who actually owns he country. I know that there are different ways of answering that question, but I don’t think that ‘Americans’ is the correct answer. And neither is ‘French’, or ‘Chinese’, for that matter.
Then again, I know nothing about the contents of the panel discussion – apart from the title – and it is possible that it was interesting in spite of the rather silly title.
Oscar Salemink
Professor in the Anthropology of Asia
Department of Anthropology
Faculty of Social Sciences
University of Copenhagen
Øster Farimagsgade 5
1353 København K.
----------
From: Melanie Beresford <melanie.beresford@mq.edu.au>
Date: Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 9:43 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I do agree that it's a silly question. OTOH if you think of 'we' as the 'Empire', then part of it was indeed lost.
Melanie
--
Melanie Beresford
Associate Professor in Economics
Faculty of Business & Economics
Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia
----------
From: Frank Proschan <frank.proschan@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 12:11 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
The best answer to the question 'who lost Viet Nam?', as to 'who lost China?' arguments before it, is the response of some famous comedian, or was it politician, who said something to the effect of, 'Gee, I didn't know they were missing! How careless.' An absurd and offensive question can only deserve an equally absurd response.
Frank Proschan
37 place Jeanne d'Arc
75013 Paris
FRANCE
----------
From: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu>
Date: Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 5:25 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear list,
Let's not be too flippant here. The bottom line is that numerous individuals, from South Vietnam to the United States (and assumedly more), perceived that they had "lost" South Vietnam. This is the interesting issue to me: the perception of loss, whether one sees it geo-politically or experientially, whether one sees it in terms of the United States's claims, or the claims of South Vietnamese. One cannot deny that this sentiment exists, and more than one could criticize the existence of nostalgia.
Thus, one has to perceive that for many, the end of South Vietnam was a loss, and is still a loss, today. At the same time, I think one trend is clear. There are many persons of Euro-American and Vietnamese origin who -- while once perceiving the end of the war as a catastrophic loss -- no longer perceive the end of the regime as the complete loss of a country, but have moved on to a new understanding of the end of the war and of the country as it is today.
Shawn McHale
Shawn McHale
Shawn McHale
Associate Professor of History
George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
----------
From: Fox, Diane <dnfox@holycross.edu>
Date: Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 8:31 AM
To: Frank Proschan <frank.proschan@yahoo.com>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Amen to Frank's comment. I had restrained myself from sending along the wisdom of my 3 year old grandson on a related situation, but given this prompt, can no longer resist. When he heard that the Patriots (New England, football) had lost, he exclaimed "Oh no! Patriots lost! We have to find them!"
I am also, however, reminded of the soul searching that went on in VN in the last half of the 19th C about the loss of the country to France.
Diane
Senior Lecturer
Anthropology
College of the Holy Cross
----------
From: Mike High <mike.high@earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 8:52 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>, Balazs Szalontai <aoverl@yahoo.co.uk>
Responding to Balazs, I’ve always doubted whether reunification in 1975 was a victory for Vietnam as a whole. In 1945-1947, I think the best outcome for Vietnam would have been a peaceful transition to a unified government under Ho Chi Minh. By the 60s and 70s, though, the better hope might have been an independent south, if it could have come to terms with the provincial resistance without acquiescing to the U.S. introduction of ground troops.
I say this knowing all the defects of the Diem and Thieu administrations, and everyone in between. (Truly, this is not easy to do for someone who sympathizes with the Buddhist movements in Vietnam.) But it seems to me that a southern regime would have offered alternatives to the mindless hegemony of the communist state, and might have had a greater chance to evolve into a more open society, as in the case of South Korea. (And I say that, knowing that the South Korean regime started out as a brutal dictatorship that conducted numerous massacres of its own people, and did not experience its own glasnost until the late 80s.)
This takes us well into “what if” territory, but what if Diem had been free to negotiate some sort of understanding with the north in which southern rice (and local accommodations) was traded for an end to the insurgency? Or was that sort of talk just a ruse to rattle the United States? On the other hand, if some accommodation could have been reached, would the northern regime taken a more moderate turn? Would the south have turned to what it does so well, commerce, and embraced more political diversity? Could a reunification as in East/West Germany have been achieved?
Of course, Vietnam is not Korea, and it is also not Germany. But it has its own advantages and unique characteristics, and one would like to think that it is destined for better things. Somehow, the long struggle of 1945-1975 resulted in the worst possible outcome, and I suspect that the massive U.S. intervention had a lot to do with that.
:: Mike High
????
Khuê van các
Independent Research Facility
Great Falls, VA
USA
----------
From: Tai, Hue-Tam <hhtai@fas.harvard.edu>
Date: Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 8:56 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I think a different meaning of "lost" is used in connection with China and Vietnam. In the Chinese context, it meant that China was lost to the US-led "Free World." In the context of debates on Vietnam, it usually means "who is to blame for the US losing the war?" The usual suspects being: the military (or a specific military person); the politicians; the anti-war protesters; the media, and so on.
One could ask: what does it mean to win or lose? What is the time frame? The film The Mouse That Roared suggested that a small country should provoke a war with the US and lose it in order to get access to US aid (inspired, of course, by the Marshall Plan). I remember my father advocating, not quite tongue in cheek, the same strategy (and he had not seen the film).
The northernization of the South lasted a little over a decade. The southernization of the North will soon reach 30 years. The Vietnamese journalist Huy Duc observed (I paraphrase): On April 30, 1975, one could say that the North liberated the South. Nearly thirty years later, thoughtful observers might conclude' however, that it was the North that has been liberated.
I have met many people in the North, including veterans, who receive remittances from relatives in the Us and elsewhere. For them, winning and losing take on different meanings.
Hue Tam Ho Tai
----------
From: Balazs Szalontai <aoverl@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 9:04 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Notably, in a certain country north of Vietnam, the post-1968 "desertion" of Hanoi was hardly, if ever, presented in a way that "we" lost our Vietnamese allies due to "our" mistakes. The problem was simply explained away by the ungratefulness and insatiable greed of the Vietnamese. Case closed. Americans are so over-complicated .:))
Cheers,
Balázs Szalontai
Kwangwoon University, Department of Historical Studies on Vietnamese Ungratefulness
----------
From: Hiep Duc <Hiep.Duc@environment.nsw.gov.au>
Date: Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 6:49 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
If you ask most overseas Vietnamese in their community across the world about the role of US, its tactics and strategy and the reason for “losing” Vietnam (here it means lost to the communists like China was lost before in 1949 to the communists) then it can be summed up like this
“With America as an ally and a friend then who needs enemy”
Hiep
----
From: Marc J. Gilbert <mgilbert@hpu.edu>
Date: Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 5:42 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Cc: "Fredbranfman@aol.com" <Fredbranfman@aol.com>
According to Ambassador Graham Martin in testimony during relatively immediate post-war Congressional Hearings on Vietnam, it was Fred Branfman and Don Luce who “lost” Vietnam. Fred for blowing the whistle on the secret bombing of Laos and Cambodia and Don Luce for writing “Vietnam: Unheard Voices” and organizing anti-war experts like himself who had long associations with the country. Nice to get it down to two Americans only, but also nice to get a statement of how reductionist U. S. policy-makers can be.
However, I was unable to attend the FPRI webinar and would welcome any traffic summarizing it.
Marc
----------
From: Fox, Diane <dnfox@holycross.edu>
Date: Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 5:49 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Marc -- Can you give us the exact source for Martin's comment?
Diane
Senior Lecturer
Anthropology
College of the Holy Cross
----------
From: Jeffrey Race <jrace@attglobal.net>
Date: Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 6:01 PM
To: "Fox, Diane" <dnfox@holycross.edu>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 20:49:58 -0500, Fox, Diane wrote:
>Marc -- Can you give us the exact source for Martin's comment?
Ask Fred?
----------
From: Mike High <mike.high@earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 8:12 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Cc: "Fredbranfman@aol.com" <Fredbranfman@aol.com>
Marc & all,
Sounds like I may have been the only person to sit through it, so I guess I’ll attempt a summary.
As I said at the outset, I didn’t particularly care for the title of the event, but I figured there’d be more to it than that.
Although the panelists did make frequent references to new sources that are available from the other side, and cited Lien-Hang Nguyen’s book (Hanoi’s War) a few times, it was a very U.S.-centric discussion. As far as the Vietnam War was concerned, the discussion focused on Lewis Sorley’s “better war” thesis. Two of the panelists (Daddis and Gentile) criticized this at great length, arguing that Westmoreland paid more attention to pacification than has generally been assumed, and that Abrams’ approach was not that different from Westmoreland’s. (For instance, that Abrams believed in the liberal use of U.S. firepower, much like Westmoreland, but shifted to counterinsurgency efforts after US/ARVN forces beat back the Tet offensive of 1968.)
Sorley called this sort of thinking “ridiculous” and made a series of ripostes, with specific references, but there was no way for the group to sort out the details in this kind of venue. (It was getting fairly hot, so I was waiting for one of them to suggest that they “step outside” and settle it the old-fashioned way.)
The thrust of Daddis’ and Gentile’s argument was that the idea of a “savior-general” is a myth, both in Vietnam and Iraq, and we shouldn’t be misled into thinking that we (the U.S.) have developed foolproof counterinsurgency strategies. As a corollary, we shouldn’t be scapegoating generals like Westmoreland for the failure of our grand strategy.
In attacking the “savior-general” idea, Daddis and Gentile took issue with Thomas Ricks’ very positive evaluation of General Petraeus. As in the case of Westmoreland-Abrams, they argue that the approach did not change that much when Petraeus took overall command. However, they didn’t contend this as fiercely as with the Westmoreland-Abrams comparison, and their exchanges with Ricks were much more collegial. (From Ricks’ articles early in the war, and his book, “Fiasco,” it would seem that a lot of generals in Iraq really didn’t have any idea how to deal with an insurgency, whereas Petraeus had a consistent, well-considered approach.)
Considering that both Daddis and Gentile teach at West Point, it was interesting to hear their thoughts on the difficulty of trying to do “nationbuilding at the point of a gun.” (I think that was Col. Gentile’s phrase, but Daddis said something similar.)
In fact, from the discussion, I gathered that three of the four panelists—everyone but Sorley—would argue that the U.S. military intervention in Vietnam was misguided and unlikely to succeed under any circumstances. As far as today’s counterinsurgency efforts, those three seemed in agreement that we haven’t come up with a magic bullet, and, that being so, we should not overestimate the military’s ability to transform other societies. (For instance, Col. Gentile suggested that our involvement in Afghanistan goes far what we need to do to neutralize Al Queda.)
For all I know, Sorley might agree that the U.S. intervention in Vietnam was misguided, but he was the one panelist who stressed that the U.S. had reneged on Nixon’s three promises to Thieu. On that basis, and what little I know of his book, I suspect that Sorely thinks the war might have been winnable. I’ll have to read his books before I say too much, but my impression from the panel discussion is that his assessments of the political and social side of the war are painfully naïve. (Among other things, I doubt that even Nixon would have had the political nerve to resume B-51 bombings in 1975, after we had finally negotiated the return of our POWs. Not to mention that the North Vietnamese had factored in the possiblity of B-51 attacks, and were willing to take that risk.)
It was an interesting session, though it didn’t do much to answer my questions about the impact of U.S. Intervention on the Saigon regime and the people in the south. I’ll share some of those questions separately, in the hopes that some VSG members can provide some illumination.
:: Mike High
????
Khuê van các
Independent Research Facility
Great Falls, VA
USA
----------
From: Mark Ashwill <markashwill@hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 6:32 AM
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
Thanks, Mike, for the update.
I especially liked this part of the event description:
Some military writers have argued that the US defeat in Vietnam can be traced to a flawed national strategy, which they blame mostly on civilian policy makers. But more recently, influential analysts, both military and civilian, have indicted the military itself for the failure, blaming military leadership for adopting a defective operational strategy.
The blame game that US Americans are so good at playing: blame the anti-war movement, blame the media, blame Don Luce and Fred Branfman, blame "civilian policy makers," blame the military leadership for its "defective operational strategy," ad nauseam. It's amazing but not surprising, I guess, that "experts," in addition to those who have managed to make a very good living revising history (e.g., Mark Moyar, former director of research at Orbis Operations, a counterinsurgency consultancy, former chaired professor at the Marine Corps University, and darling of the national security state), are still droning on - no pun intended - about WHYWE LOST VIETNAM.
When I saw the title, I thought of Stanley Karnow's immortal words to another Stanley overseeing another one of America's imperial misadventures: "What did we learn from Vietnam? We learned that we shouldn't have been there in the first place." The main point is that Vietnam - as a nation - won. As for the USA? It's still spinning its wheels, in collective denial, and refusing to overcome its bloody past and prevent the "past" from becoming "prologue."
What about a symposium/webcast on WHY VIETNAM WON? or WHY THE USA SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN IN VIETNAM IN THE FIRST PLACE? Do you think that would appeal to FPRI's partners (i.e., donors), including Boeing, Savitz Employee Benefit Consultants and Actuaries, Beneficial Bank, West Pharmaceutical, etc. and a long list of individuals of means?
MAA
Hanoi
----------
From: Balazs Szalontai <aoverl@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 7:35 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
This reformulation is certainly very much justified, but the new question is also a bit inaccurate. One might rather ask why the northern regime won and the southern lost, for it is quite awkward to regard either Hanoi or Saigon as the representative of the Vietnamese nation as such. Unification in itself was certainly a victory for Vietnam as a whole, but the specific nature of this unification (i.e., the imposition of a Communist system on the South) meant that a rather significant part of the nation was treated as "viet gian."
----------
From: Ngô Thanh Nhàn <nhan@temple.edu>
Date: Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 7:36 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear Mark and Mike and all,
I used to go to Marysville north of California and was surprised to find gate with a sign
???? "defeat the Ching and restore the Ming"… Obviously people who supported
the Ming Dynasty and lost to the Ching going to California did not think they lost China.
There is a term in Vietnamese, m?t nu?c "lose the country" (or dehydration) refers to
losing one's country to other foreign countries. The phrase "m?t Vi?t Nam" can be
understood that foreigners who wanted to own Vi?t Nam but lost it to the Vietnamese?
My intention is to write about us, the Vietnamese who were allies of the US. They
(I use "they" here) have fought valiantly, and sacrificed immensely, not only the
lives of their loved ones, their properties, and much more. They have lost a lot more
than the US can ever imagine. I have not seen attempts by the US government
to address this issue. I believe they deserve to be treated as Americans who fought
for the US--they deserve to be treated equal to veterans, assisted by the VA, and
taken care of their health, including problems of Agent Orange. The health report
of Santa Clara county, CA, for example, sounds alarms about the Vietnamese
community there.
If the intention of the symposium is to address the US responsibility to the Vietnamese
American community, I believe it might help--because it's very very long overdue.
Best,
Ngô Thanh Nhàn
----------
From: Bettina Lily Mcneil <294049@soas.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 7:56 AM
To: Balazs Szalontai <aoverl@yahoo.co.uk>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I think the American (and European) tendency to use "Vietnam" as shorthand for "the Vietnam War" is significant as it suggests, in the Western consciousness, 'Vietnam' is still to some extent thought of as a war, rather than a country.
It would be interesting to see the response to an equivalent Vietnamese webinar with the title, "Why we won America, Revisited"
Bettina
----------
From: Nhu Miller <trantnhu@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 8:46 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Graham Martin named the Indochina Resource Center which was founded by none
other than David Marr in Berkeley, California, as the primary culprit. What an honor!
T.T. Nhu
----------
From: Jo <ugg-5@spro.net>
Date: Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 8:52 AM
To: Balazs Szalontai <aoverl@yahoo.co.uk>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Good point, Balazs!
Joanna
----------
From: William Turley <wturley@siu.edu>
Date: Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 10:36 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Actually, Bettina, "Why we won America" is pretty much the theme of every official history of the war written in Hanoi since war's end.
Bill Turley
William S. Turley
Chemin de Coste Longue
Quartier Notre Dame
Lançon-de-Provence, France 13680
----------
From: <sdenney@library.berkeley.edu>
Date: Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 11:24 AM
To: Balazs Szalontai <aoverl@yahoo.co.uk>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Among Vietnamese refugees I know, many felt they lost their country in
1975. It is more accurate to say some Vietnamese won the war and some
lost, rather than Vietnam won the war. As pointed out below, it "is quite
awkward to regard either Hanoi or Saigon as the representative of the
Vietnamese nation as such," especially given the suppression of dissent.
Steve Denney
library assistant
UC Berkeley
----------
From: Bettina Lily Mcneil <294049@soas.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 2:03 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thanks Bill, I'm not familiar with the official analyses but I can believe that might be the case. My point was more about the confusing of "Vietnam" with the Vietnam War. As the US has more dominance, so the Vietnamese perception of "America" extends beyond "the American War". I think such a Vietnamese conference would be likely to discuss why they won the war, not why they won America.
On the wider question of who won/lost: it made me think of the introductory chapter to Stanley Karnow's book on Vietnam, called "The War Nobody Won". I wonder to what extent wars like the Vietnam War are ever won.
----------
From: Kyle Horst <KHorst@usccb.org>
Date: Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 3:32 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Cc: "Fredbranfman@aol.com" <Fredbranfman@aol.com>
The conference audio can be heard hear:
http://www.fpri.org/multimedia/2013/02/why-we-lost-vietnam-revisited-audio
----------
From: Melanie Beresford <melanie.beresford@mq.edu.au>
Date: Sat, Feb 23, 2013 at 1:13 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Well, this thread has provoked some interesting comments on who won what and who lost what in that war. But I would say, a propos of Hue Tam's comment especially, that the focus of the seminar was very unambiguously on why "we" lost Vietnam to the "free world". One would hope that at least they are attempting to draw some lessons for their latest military adventures.
On another point Hue Tam made, I don't think 'northernization' lasted more than about 3 years - if that. Nguyen Van Linh was sacked in 1978 for his failure to progress this northernization. The attempt to get it moving under Do Muoi provoked the hijacking of the 1979 CC Plenum by reformers (one might even say 'protestors'). With the US out of the way, the Vietnamese of different persuasions have been slugging it out through politics. So much more reasonable than war, don't you think?
Bill Turley, I think there's a difference between 'beat America' and 'won America'. If VN was lost to the 'free world', America certainly was not won to the Communist one. Vietnam might have more success winning America these days as the latter looks for allies against China and capitalism takes an ever stronger hold in the former.
cheers,
Melanie
--
Melanie Beresford
Associate Professor in Economics
Faculty of Business & Economics
Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam <hhtai@fas.harvard.edu>
Date: Sat, Feb 23, 2013 at 5:54 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Actually, it was not clear what the US goal was in Vietnam (or should one say, South Vietnam?). The goal posts kept shifting. It seemed that one goal was not so much keeping South Vietnam in the "Free World" but avoiding American loss of face (aka credibility, "keeping promises").
Northernization as a policy issue within the leadership may not have lasted more than three years. As an experience, it lasted far longer. I've heard the period up to 1986 referred to as "ten years of hell."
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Kenneth T. Young Professor
of Sino-Vietnamese History
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From: Martin Gainsborough <martin.gainsborough@virgin.net>
Date: Sat, Feb 23, 2013 at 8:34 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
It would be good if someone did some really in depth research into what actually happened in 1978/79. The interpretation that Melanie puts on it, seems to me, the gloss that Vietnam watchers watching from afar and operating in a solidly Cold War context put on it. I have never found this very convincing and my hunch is that it is probably way more subtle than this. It wouldn’t be an easy piece of research to do but I reckon a careful reading of the press of the day – and perhaps some interviews – would at least muddy the waters somewhat.
Apologies if there is detailed research on this that I don’t know about or have forgotten about!
Martin Gainsborough
Bristol University, UK
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From: William Turley <wturley@siu.edu>
Date: Sat, Feb 23, 2013 at 11:09 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
You're right of course, Melanie, VN did not "win" America over. I was thinking of the webinar situation, in which people from one side sit around discussing what "we" did right or wrong.
Bill
William S. Turley
Chemin de Coste Longue
Quartier Notre Dame
Lançon-de-Provence, France 13680
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From: Melanie Beresford <melanie.beresford@mq.edu.au>
Date: Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 2:45 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Cold War perspective? I'm mystified. The 'reformers' pushing a new agenda at the 1979 plenum were mainly southern officials responding to everyday realities in their bailiwicks. The plenum was supposed to be about 'small scale industry', but it ended up rather differently. What's that got to do with Cold War?
Melanie
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From: Melanie Beresford <melanie.beresford@mq.edu.au>
Date: Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 9:50 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Hi all,
As I have just had a most peculiar offline exchange with Martin with regard to his post below, I would just like to state for the record that my observations about 1978-79 were based partly on interviews with people who were heavily involved at the time (including a couple who were at the 1979 Plenum) as well as less formal conversations with Vietnamese colleagues. They were therefore quite obviously not "the gloss that Vietnam watchers watching from afar and operating in a solidly Cold War context put on it."
I suspect that Dang Phong wrote something about it (in Vietnamese of course), but I've since moved on to other things and haven't found the time to read his big tome.
cheers,
Melanie
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