Lessons Learned of the Vietnam War - Essay Example

?The Lessons America Learned from the Vietnam War Module Module ID: Lessons from the Vietnam War: Introduction: The present paper aims to explore the lessons the USA has learnt from its invasion on Vietnam during mid 1950s to 1970s, as well as discovering the neglected aspects of the mistakes the US leadership should have learnt from history before making an invasion plan on some other weaker and smaller countries of the world out of some ideological, religious or political differences between it and the rival country. The paper will also elucidate the causes and consequences of the Vietnam War in order to specify the extent of the responsibility each of the warring-parties shares in order to take the circumstances to the point of no return in such a manner that the war had eventually become inevitable in the region. Before embarking upon the topic under consideration, it would be advisable to elucidate the causes and consequences of the conflict and bloodshed in brief. The Vietnam War1 serves as one of the most dominant and influential international conflicts appeared after the Second Great War (Mahajan, 2003)2 on the horizons of the world, encompassing the Far East in its fold, and leaving an indelible impact of its horrible consequences in the entire region as well as on the rest of the world at large. Started during the climax of Cold War (Arora 2002)3 between the then two strategic Super Powers i.e. the USSR and USA, the war lasted for twenty long years from 1955 to 1975, and ended in the heavy losses of men and material of the invaded Vietnam as well as the complete humiliation and degradation of the invader USA eventually. Although, the American administration and forces applied every possible strategy and even military brutality on the country, particularly the Mai Lai catastrophic massacre (Fallows 2009)4, yet the defensive state, along with its forces and masses belonging to this small Far East state of Vietnam, did not surrender one single inch of their territorial boundaries; at last their exemplary fortitude, unflinching will-power and unabated determination forced the US military might to surrender and hence paved the way for the cessation and exit of the American troops from their country at last. The Lessons America Learnt: The analysts, since the aftermath of the Vietnam War onward, remained engaged in making investigations of the causes behind the failure of the US mission in a country, which apparently looked a very easy target, though turned out to be a hard nut to crack; even its population, economic position and military force was far lesser in comparison with the American might. Consequently, discovering the chronicles of events that turned the US invasion over Vietnam as nightmare for her had turned to be a moot point to be discussed at every forum for the future years to come. One of the most fatal mistakes committed by the invading country was sending a huge army of almost 3 million US men and women thousands of miles away from their fatherland in order to fight a foreign soil just for stopping the advancement of communism from entering the northern part of Vietnam (Anghie 2007).5 Actually the US foreign strategy remained revolving around creating certain impediments on the way to the advancements of Communist Russia; in order to keep an overwhelming majority of the world sovereign-states under the US influence and economic subjugation as well.6 Consequently, protection of her economic system capitalism served to be the most vital issue for the Americans, for the security of which the US leadership dragged the military personnel into a certain inferno, which cost the lives of over 2.5 million people on both the warring sides eventually (Kalyvas & Kocher 2003). Hence, the Americans fought a fruitless war hundreds of miles away from their home in order to tame a small Asian state by wasting a huge amount of dollars for a useless pursuit. It is therefore the USA has assured the least chances of the occurrence of deaths and causalities during her attacks and stay in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the Americans applied the weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) against the invaded countries, and inflicted heavy losses of men and material on them just to protect the Americans from death and injuries even. Another considerable mistake committed by the American strategic analysts included the poor and inadequate performance of its propaganda machine. The information cell and print and electronic media broadcasted such a horrible picture of the entire scenario that the world appeared to be startled at the triumphs made by the North Vietnamese army in the face of utter hardships on the one hand, and the US humiliation and defeat at various fronts on the other. It is therefore, the Americans learnt how to keep the morale of the military personnel and soldiers high during the peek hours of war through false propaganda. However, the information gathered by the representatives of the then newly launched Al-Jazeera TV network foiled the false American propaganda, and revealed the significant number of causalities the invading country had to bear during the course of Iraq-US War 2003-2012. Another imperative lesson the Vietnam War has taught to the USA includes fighting a war by entering into alliance, so that the interests and man-power of other states could also be included in order to turn the war decisive on the one hand, and to minimize the number and proportion of one’s losses eventually. In addition, in case of defeat, the invading country can call its forces back by taking the plea that the allies are not in favor of prolonging the stay. The same has taken place in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the US leadership argues that since the UK, Australia, New Zealand and other allies are not in favor of fighting anymore in the Iraqi soil, the allies should enter into a peaceful solution to the entire state of affairs subsequently. The Lessons Not Learnt: The history is replete with the evidences that the majority of the US youth appeared to be standing against the war designs, and viewed it to be unproductive, futile and useless.7 It was partly due to the very fact that their elders had participated in both the Great Wars, and had closely examined the destructive consequences of such adventures and military campaigns, which had always produced injuries and wounds, and pains and woes in their wake. The America did not learn from history that the individuals could never overcome the nations altogether. It is particularly the case with the land-locked mountainous Asian state of Afghanistan, which had been an undefeatable and surmountable nation for the foreigner invaders since ever because of their haughtiness and stubbornness. Since the Afghans are extremely racists by nature, and maintain a ruling passion in their minds, they prefer death to slavery. Consequently, they launched resistance movement against the US-led Alliance, out of sheer feelings of envy, jealousy and revenge, which inflicted unbearable losses to the allies in the form of death causalities they faced in the mountainous zone. Moreover, it was America to provide the Afghans with ammunition and military training in order to fight against the Russian troops during 1979-1989. Thus, the USA had to pay the ransom amount of the financial and moral support she had rendered to the war-monger Afghans, who had turned the entire zone into a virtuous hell in the real sense of the world. The same situation of patriotism he US forced had witnessed in Vietnam, where the brave and dauntless Vietnamese had left no stone unturned to secure their motherland from falling into the hands of American troops. Moreover, the cruel Americans had inflicted massacre in My Lai village, by killing thousands of the civilians in cold blood on 16th March 1968. The same atrocious act was repeated in the Abu Ghuraib Prison of Iraq, which aroused the sentiments for the Iraqis from all corners of the world in its wake. As a result, the Americans are bound to leave the country without achieving the targets the American had established before attacking the country; the same is the situation in Afghanistan too. Bibliography Anghie, Antony Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law (Cambridge University Press 2007), 237 Chander, Parkash & Arora, Prem International Relations (Bookhives 2003), 52-66 Fallows, James. What did you do in the Class War, Daddy? (Washington Monthly 1975) Retrieved from http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0911.fallows.html Kalyvas, Stathis N. & Kocher, Matthew Violence and Control in Civil War: An Analysis of the Hamlet Evaluation System (HES) (University of Chicago, 2003), 1-9 http://www.yale.edu/macmillan/ocvprogram/licep/7/kalyvas-kocher/kalyvas-kocher.pdf Mahajan, V D International Relations since 1900 (S. Chand & Company Limited 2004), 21-24 The Time Mai Lai Massacre 1969 Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,840403,00.html#ixzz15FTV197C Read More