If the current situation in Iraq has an almost-but-not-quite Vietnam feel to it, it's probably because you are thinking of Vietnam as if you were an American.
When in fact the more accurate comparison is that Iraq in its current state, leastwise how the politicos and more importantly the top brass are approaching it, is perhaps more comparable to the Vietnam experience of the French.
Props to litho for the idea to post this as a diary, and it is litho's idea to frame the current debacle as akin to the three most infamous words in the French language:
Dien Bien Phu
History repeats, below the break...
Once upon a time in French Indochina....
Dien Bien Phu or, if you want to go to town, Điện Biên Phủ, is a small city in northwestern Vietnam. Here's the geography blurb:
The town of Dien Bien Phu has a population of around 125,000, although it was much smaller at the time of the battle. The majority of the population is not ethnically Vietnamese - rather, Thai ethnic groups form the largest segment. Ethnic Vietnamese make up around a third of the population, with the remainder being Hmong, Si La, or others.
Điện Biên Phủ lies in Muong Thanh valley, a 20-km-long and 6-km-wide basin sometimes described as "heart-shaped". It is the capital of Dien Bien Phu Province and has traditionally been considered remote. It is only around 30 kilometers from the border with Laos.
That part about being in a valley is very important. Pay attention to that detail; the French did not.
However, first we must sink further back into history, not to the end of French dominance of Indohina, but to the beginning of the end of it...
The Road to Dien Bien Phu
The First Indochina War lasted from 1946 to 1954, fought between France and the Viet Minh (Vietnamese Independence League). Wiki tells it best:
The Việt Minh launched a rebellion against the French authority governing the colonies of French Indochina. The first few years of the war were a low-level rural insurgency against French authority. However, after the Chinese communists reached the Northern border of Vietnam in 1949 the conflict became a conventional war between two armies equipped with modern weapons.
After seven years of bloody conflict, a French force was defeated at Điện Biên Phủ, where they were engaged by the forces of General Võ Nguyên Giáp. The forces the French had available were unable to defeat successive human wave attacks, the use of heavy artillery and trench warfare by the Việt Minh and the subsequent siege of the base; the French were defeated with devastating losses. By 1954, the war in Indochina was unpopular with the French public, but the political stagnation of the Fourth Republic meant that France was unable to extract itself from the conflict. The United States supported the French politically and financially, and, by 1954, was bearing 80% of the cost of the French war effort.
After the war, the Geneva Conference on July 21, 1954 made a provisional division of Vietnam at the 17th parallel, with the north being given to the Việt Minh as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam under Hồ Chí Minh and the south becoming the State of Vietnam under Emperor Bảo Đại. A year later, Bảo Đại would be deposed by his prime minister, Ngô Đình Diệm, creating the Republic of Vietnam. Diem's refusal to enter into negotiations with North Vietnam about the holding of nationwide elections in 1956, as had been stipulated by the Geneva Conference, would eventually lead to war breaking out again in South Vietnam in 1959 - the Second Indochina War.
With a bit of tweaking, this could as easily read as follows:
...the first few years of the warwere a low-level urban melee between various factions, the factions against the American-backed central government (which was chopped into ministerial fiefdoms) and against the Americans themselves. . However, after the Iranians became active participants in the political refashioning of Iraq, then the Saudis followed suit, the conflict became a conventional civil war between two armies equipped with modern weapons, with the Americans trying to maintain a strategically and politically untenable presence.
There's a choice line farther down, worth a rewrite...
Long before 2008, the war in Iraq had become unpopular with the American public, but the policy stagnation of the Republican administration meant that the United States was unable to extract itself from the conflict.
Comparing the Iraq War with the First Indochina War
In reality, there are few similarities to the players, the circumstances, the geopolitics, the capabilities, the motives and the temperaments at hand in the two conflicts.
Regardless, to read a play by play of the First Indochina War cannot but help to get a person making comparisons, in a way that not even the American experience in Vietnam does, for in key respects the wars are similar, in that
- There is an intransigent great power insisting on remaining influential in local events
- preferring to concentrate overwhelming military power in its hands
- make no meaningful concessions or devolution of power to local allies
- creation of token local security forces, to free up own troops for battle
- no problem using mercenaries or local militia when expedient
- incoherent, inconsistent battle strategy, dedicated to the ambiguous goal of not leaving, ever
- concerns about involvement of a nearby challenger that, noisemaking aside, the great power would as soon not fight if possible
- evolving organization, expertise, tactics, and ability of insurgents to recruit and retain popular, even fanatical support from local population in conflict against foreign forces
- accusations of assistance of insurgents from foreign powers; largely incredible threats of reprisal should assistance continue, which does and in fact escalates openly.
- great unpopularity of war back home for the great power
- regardless, political climate intractable; retreat feared as a personal, partisan and patriotic disaster.
- sense of being dragged toward disaster
- recognition of military solution being impossible General Henri Navarre referred to Indochina as having no military solution. The problem is, Navarre also openly advocated a coup d'etat against the Fourth Republic, as (in something that will sound awfully familiar) the reason France lost was all the fault of failures in the constitution and, you guessed it, liberals. Apparently, he'd have rather have had his half-million troops kicking butt in Nantes, rather than 'Nam.
Now, if this comparison holds for much longer, we will see the following:
- continued adherence to moribund military solution, regardless, punctuated by occasional spectacular events involving increasingly dangerous gambits on the part of the great power
- in the meantime, the insurgent forces gather in strength, numbers, sophistication and armaments.
- Unmistakable strain on great power forces, spike in demand for decisive action or 'peace with honor' style solutions
- Intractable policy, negligible civilian leadership, collapse of morale in officer cadre and ranks of great power forces at same time special effort demanded of same.
- Very heavy body counts racked up in spectacular moves by great power.
- A final ambitious push into hostile territory by the great power.
- Plan backfires quickly, as great power proves to have finally overextended itself, greatly underestimating capabilities of insurgents.
- A major, high-profile military humiliation DBP, again
- Breakdown of entire occupation command and control structure in-country; other, less-publicized, less massive yet equally-jarring defeats elsewhere before (such as the Battle of Mang Yang Pass
- A final, humiliating departure for keeps from the former sphere of influence occurs.
Again, the cases are quite different in the particulars.
Yet all I did was abstract the experience of the First Indochina War, here, and it sure does read like a crystal ball.
Anyone up for betting it doesn't go down the same way?
Keep in mind that the American answer to Vietnam was to just do more of what the French did. We were quite, ah, Napoleonic in our adherence to the code that victory goes to the army with bigger battallions.
Back to General Henri Navarre...
He's the guy who blamed losing Indochina on the French government, intellectuals, liberals, you know the words; it's the same song.
One imagines he had every reason to send blame outward:
Being such a strategic genius, Navarre is the one who picked Dien Bien Phu as a most excellent place to plant a base.
Oops.
Appendix: Oh, yeah. Why The Vietnamese Won At Battle of Dien Bien Phu
Oh, every reason possible.
In all fairness, the concept of an air-supplied firebase-writ-large had worked in practice before... the French had enjoyed great success at the Battle of Nan Sanh, where Giap had beaten the heck out of himself over the course of several months attempting to take out the base.
The problem is, unlike Dien Bien Phu (remember the detail about it being in a valley?), the base at Nan Sanh was on high ground and enjoyed artillery support capable of mowing down any force that set against it. Also, Giap, the Viet Minh general, acted in haste against the French stronghold. He did not make the same mistake twice.
link
At Dien Bien Phu, Giap would spend months stockpiling ammunitions and emplacing heavy artillery and anti-aircraft guns before making his move. Teams of Viet Minh volunteers were sent into the French camp in order to note the disposition of the French artillery. Wooden artillery pieces were built for camouflage and the real guns were rotated every few salvos to confuse French counterbattery fire. As a result, when the battle began, the Viet Minh knew exactly where the French artillery were while the French were not even aware of how many guns Giap possessed.
Third, the aerial resupply lines at Nan Sanh were never severed despite Viet Minh anti-aircraft fire. At Dien Bien Phu, Giap amassed anti-aircraft batteries that quickly shut down the runway and made it prohibitively costly for the French to bring in reinforcements.
Thus, the Vietnamese had every advantage
- excellent intelligence long prior to battle
- logistics
- siege fortifications in place
- surprise, and how
- the high ground
- the French had the low ground
- greatly superior numbers (4x more than the French ever imagined they'd face)
- concealment of forces (thus, the consternation about how large an army the Viet Minh had set on Dien Bien Phu)
- commanding view of those of the French
- airtight control of ground approaches to city
- effective shutdown of the air resupply to the French
- all the time in the world to wait out the siege
The outcome was never in question.