"Lessons in Disaster": If Obama Caves to the Pentagon, He's No Jack Kennedy

President Obama knows better than to agree to General McChrystal's proposal for military escalation in Afghanistan. He read the book.

On October 7, the Wall Street Journal reported that top officials of the Obama Administration, including President Obama himself, had recently read Gordon Goldstein's book on the path to U.S. military escalation in Vietnam: Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam.

The Journal reported that, "For opponents of a major troop increase, led by Biden and Emanuel, "'Lessons in Disaster' ... encapsulates their concerns about accepting military advice unchallenged."

Indeed, a central theme of the book is President Kennedy's willingness, on the question of ground troops in Vietnam, to do what President Obama has not yet done regarding demands for military escalation in Afghanistan: stand up to the U.S. military and say no.

Journalist Seymour Hersh, a close student of the U.S. military since he broke the story of the My Lai massacre, says the U.S. army is "in a war against the White House - and they feel they have Obama boxed in." Hersh says the only way out is for Obama to stand up to the Pentagon. "He's either going to let the Pentagon run him or he has to run the Pentagon," Hersh said. If he doesn't, "this stuff is going to be the ruin of his presidency." The only way for the U.S. to extricate itself from the conflict, Hersh says, is to negotiate with the Taliban. "It's the only way out," he said. "I know that there's a lot of discussion in the White House about this now. But Obama is going to have to take charge, and there's no evidence he's going to do that."

There's a conventional wisdom now that Obama simply can't "take charge," because it's politically impossible. According to this view, McChrystal's request sets up the Republicans to blame Obama for "losing Afghanistan" if he doesn't agree to McChrystal's request (even though, as Fareed Zakaria notes in the Washington Post, over the past 18 months, troop levels in Afghanistan have almost tripled).

But Goldstein's book strongly argues that President Obama could say no to the U.S. military. The perceived threat to the U.S. from "international Communism" was at least as powerful a bogey in American politics in 1961 as the threat of international terrorism is today.

Goldstein notes (p. 30):

[I]n the fall of 1961, Kennedy's most senior advisers almost unanimously warned him that the odds were sharply against avoiding a catastrophic defeat in Vietnam unless the president approved the first increment of a ground combat force deployment that might ultimately reach six divisions, or more than 200,000 men.

Yet Kennedy rejected every proposal to send combat troops to Vietnam.

Kennedy also rejected U.S. military demands for U.S. military intervention in Laos (pp. 46-47) In April 1961, Admiral Arleigh Burke, chief of naval operations, argued "strongly and repeatedly" that without U.S. military intervention in Laos, "all Southeast Asia will be lost." The majority of Kennedy's advisers supported the deployment of combat troops to South Vietnam, Thailand, and government-controlled positions in Laos. If that failed to produce a cease-fire, Kennedy was advised to use tactical nuclear weapons against Laotian guerrillas. If China or North Vietnam intervened, those countries should be bombed and, if necessary, attacked with nuclear weapons.

Instead of taking any of this advice, Kennedy pressed for a diplomatic solution, bringing about a cease-fire and eventually an agreement for the neutralization of Laos.

Kennedy's willingness to stand up to military and civilian advisers who seemed to automatically advocate the most militarily aggressive U.S. response to any situation was informed by the debacle of the Bay of Pigs invasion, when Kennedy was badly burned by bad advice - not just advice that was bad in the sense of being wrong in its predictions, but advice that was deceitful - bad in the sense of "bad faith" and withholding key information. The same advisers who demanded U.S. military intervention in Laos had advised Kennedy to approve the Bay of Pigs operation - the invasion of Cuba by U.S.-supported Cuban exiles. Before the invasion, Kennedy's advisers talked up the great prospects for success. In approving it, Kennedy made clear that if it failed, he would not authorize direct U.S. military intervention to save it. When - predictably - the operation failed, Kennedy's advisers demanded direct U.S. military intervention to save it. In fact, the documentary record shows that the CIA knew the operation would fail without direct U.S. military intervention, but withheld this information from Kennedy, and that their plan all along was to box Kennedy into a situation where he would be compelled to involve U.S. forces. By Kennedy's own account, the CIA and the military didn't believe that a "new president" would stand up to them. (p.40)

When you read this history, you see Vice-President Biden's prediction that President Obama would be "tested" in a new light. Yes, President Obama is being tested - but not by foreign adversaries. President Obama is being tested by the Pentagon.

President Kennedy was no dove. Kennedy was willing to violate international law and Kennedy was willing to authorize the killing of people in foreign countries who had committed no crime against the people of the United States. What Kennedy was not willing to do was commit U.S. ground troops to an unwinnable war in Vietnam. And he wasn't willing to commit U.S. ground troops - as some of his advisers were - in the belief that protecting U.S. "credibility" meant that it would be better to fight and lose than not to fight. You don't have to be a dove to understand what President Kennedy understood: putting U.S. troops on the ground somewhere doesn't automatically make you more powerful. Indeed, it could make you less powerful, because, all other things being equal, a person with more options is more powerful than a person with fewer options. And if military escalation closes off opportunities for diplomatic and political solutions, it makes you less powerful.

Some people at the top of the Obama Administration clearly get this. Indeed, the Journal reported that, "Administration officials in the Biden camp fear they too could close off the path to a more peaceful resolution of the conflict if 40,000 more troops are sent."

This is the key danger in approving McChrystal's request. Of course, in the short run, sending more troops almost surely means that more U.S. troops will die and more Afghan civilians will die, and that would be bad enough. But the even greater danger is that it might make the eventual, inevitable political resolution of the conflict more difficult, thereby prolonging it and causing many more needless deaths.

National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy believed that after the U.S. escalated and "Americanized" the Vietnam war in 1965, a diplomatic solution was "not viable." Repeating this mistake - making a diplomatic resolution "not viable" - is the great danger in McChrystal's request. Bundy said later that Congress knew perfectly well what was at stake when President Johnson escalated U.S. involvement in 1965, and deliberately chose not to be involved. That observation is even more relevant today. No one in Congress can claim ignorance of a debate that has been aired in the media much more than the 1965 escalation decision was. If Congress isn't speaking up, it must be that they're not hearing enough from their constituents.

As former Marine captain Matthew Hoh recently wrote in his letter of resignation as a top U.S. official in Afghanistan,

"I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, 'Listen, I don't think this is right.' "

Now there's a great American patriot. Do what he says.

Follow Robert Naiman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/naiman

Comments

[flynnbw]

This is an absurd comparison. Afghanistan is already an "Americanized" war. The geopolitics are different. The Taliban isn't a national liberation movement. The generals are giving the President their unvarnished professional opinions. I understand about learning from history, but could baby boomers PLEASE stop comparing every situation to Vietnam!

[Meldy1]

how about sending limbaugh to fight in Afghanista­n????probl­em solved....

[Meldy1]

how about asking some advice to lieberman and palin????they always double crossed the President or attacking him with death panels theory......

[opines]

Perhaps Obama, like a majority of Americans, does not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was solely responsible for the killing of JFK. The Pentagon under LBJ had its way in Vietnam and the build-up to 550,000 U.S. combat troops in Vietnam began less than 2 years after the assassination in Dallas.

If Obama defies the Pentagon as the author suggests, ...

[NCAV2]

This thought has crossed my mind at least once.

[jimpager]

Kennedy had rolled over on "Advisors" to Vietnam on advice
of his military advisors (he no longer trusted CIA after Bay of Pigs), but
realized military advice was as FUBAR as his Intel advice. JFK had
named Lansdale (Air Force/CIA), initially head of Mongoose to take down Castro
(we saw how successful that was) and later Lansdale was involved with the
Saigon mission. Kennedy's military folks were working on a Coup in Saigon
(depose Diem) about November 1, 1963 in which Diem was supposed
to receive political exile. Instead, Diem and Nhu were murdered.
JFK was scheduled to see a football game in Chicago on the same day and
three were arrested in Chicago with weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition
just before JFK was to go. The trip was cancelled at the last minute due to presidential
"illness" which Pierre Salinger later refuted. The Diem/Nhu coup/assassination was
being sheparded in Saigon by Lucien Conein, a Lansdale lieutenant. Were Kennedy
and Diem "supposed" to be hit the same day? In Dealey Plaza in Dallas several weeks
later, the day of JFK's assassination, one of the pictures of the "tramps" has
another person in the photo that some believe is Lansdale.

Kennedy had announced the first thousand troops (of 16,000) be withdrawn
by the end of 1963 and that plans be made for complete withdrawal by 1965,
after the election. After his death, those withdrawal plans were shelved by LBJ executive
order even before JFK was buried.

[opines]

Perhaps, like a majority of Americans do not believe the Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone assassin. Within a year after JFK's assassination, by means of a discredited attack on a U.S. warship, the Pentagon and LBJ got a blank check to commit combat troops (the Tonkin Bay Resolution) and we were on our way to a buildup to 550.000 troops in Vietnam.

Should Obama choose to defy the Pentagon...

[Cletus Wilbury]

Great article by Robert Naiman.

I would point out that candidate Obama said he would pursue the war in Afghanistan and gradually withdraw from Iraq.

On many fronts we have advantages in Afghanistan as comparison to Vietnam. Most importantly is a strategy that isn't counter productive to our goals, i.e. a strategy that protects the population and builds legitimacy for the host government. Another is that we have the support of the international community. We didn't have that at all in Vietnam, only slightly more in Iraq. That helps tremendously on the political front in the host nation and also helps pay for the effort. Also, regarding the matter of resupply, it appears the Taliban are going to have trouble getting much. In the past Pakistan was supporting them, but that is changing. Lastly I'll point to the effort to have real elections in Afghanistan. We never really did that in Vietnam. The ARVN elections were a sham, they didn't do runoff elections because the military didn't want to chance a civilian win.

http://www.answers.com/topic/nguyen-van-thieu
".But Thieu ended up with a surprisingly modest 35 percent plurality vote (with civilian candidate Truong Dinh Dzu polling 17 percent to finish second)."

CIA released:
http://library2.usask.ca/vietnam/index.php?state=view&id=441

"... that to ensure a plurality, an emergency plan for tampering with elections has been organized ... "

[RobertNaiman - Huffpost Blogger]

Correction: Hoh said "I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, 'Listen, I don't think this is right.' " not in his letter of resignation, but in his interview with the Washington Post.

Letter of resignation:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/ssi/wpc/ResignationLetter.pdf

Article in the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/26/AR2009102603394.html

[buttonz]

Is it clear to anyone that blocking the resources to end the war is actually prolonging it and making it last longer?

Would we have won WWII if we didn't deploy as many soldiers and ships as we did? People will compare Afghanistan and Vietnam but will not compare Vietnam and WWII or the Korean War or WWI or Sir Lanka or the Malaysian uprising or any major conflict of the 20th century. Naiman, like everyone else here is cherry picking historical anecdotes to make their case while ignoring history as a whole.

[RobertNaiman - Huffpost Blogger]

This raises the question of whether the war in Afghanistan is more like Vietnam, or more like World War II? World War II ended in the total military defeat and surrender of US adversaries. Is that how the war in Afghanistan is likely to end? Most experts, including US officials, don't think so - they concede that "there is no military solution" and that "the Taliban cannot be defeated militarily." If you concede that the Taliban can't be defeated militarily, then you concede that the war in Afghanistan isn't like World War II in this key respect. Incidentally, a recent CNN poll said that the majority of Americans think Afghanistan has become "another Vietnam."

Most Americans Say "Afghanistan = Vietnam"
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/376

[buttonz]

I am honored to have one of my posts responded to by a blogger whom I address, thank you.

As a person who works closely with foreign policy you understand that the majority of the public does not always understand the complexities of every issue. Just because the majority of the American public think one thing doesn't mean it's right (WMD's anyone?).

I agree with you that Afghanistan is more like Vietnam than WWII (yet ironically South Vietnam was conquered by WWII style tactics), however comparing the failed aspects of a failed endeavor to every low-intensity we have been involved since is not a strong argument. You state that Obama must remain resilient against Pentagon pressure to increase more troops and expand the war. Then you draw the assumption that this will have the same result as Vietnam. You need to expand on this. Actually all critics of increased deployment need to expand on this. Never mind Vietnam is one of the very few examples of increased deployment failed compared to the many other examples of where it succeeded (Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Tibet, Philippines, Iraq, etc.). The idea of increased troops does not revolve around of a bigger hammer, it is part of a greater strategy of keeping territory from falling to the Taliban thus denying them footholds which cost more lives to take back.

[buttonz]

McArthur and McChrystal are not remotely the same people. McArthur was obsessed with wiping out China communism, he was an arrogant ideologue. McChrystal doesn't want another Vietnam or Iraq. Obama promised to McChrystal earlier that he will support his strategy and then turned his back on him. When the largest reasons for soldier and civilian casualties are because of a lack of support, there is no wonder he is protesting Obama's change of mind. This not a general looking for fame and glory, he was the guy who caught Saddam and the guy who took Al Qaeda's #1 man in Iraq and was largely ignored in the papers.

He knows that if troops levels remain, violence will only increase as there will be a lack of resources to prevent the Taliban from growing. Nobody wants to be set up for failure.

[GalenL]

Support from the civilian leadership is at this point immaterial, we're debating further escalation of the war a year or two down the road, before we even see the result of the additional 20,000 troops already allocated and the debate is loosing the war?

Please.

[buttonz]

Why is everyone using one part of the Vietnam War to state an example? There are dozens of precedents throughout the 20th and 21st century that suggests that McChrystal's strategy is the only chance of success where any other strategy (maintain current numbers or withdraw) will not work.

The sad thing is that for the first 4 years of the Iraq war, Bush caved into populism and politicians while ignoring the advice of his generals to increase the troops and change the strategy. The result was success. Bush did this against many politicians who said it was a bad idea.

Make no mistake, it was Obama's intentions to commit to Afghanistan and make no mistake it is other politicians that don't want the soldier increase.

What happened in Vietnam is irrelevant. Westmoreland, the general in charge of Vietnam was not committed to the stratagems of counter insurgency and was not fired. We left an incompetent commander in charge.

If anything Bush did right was that he fired all the incompetent generals and put the people who knew what they were doing in charge. Bush handed Obama the best chance for Afghanistan, and congress and the White House want to take it away...

[Liberal2]

1) What are our goals for being in Afghanistan?

2) What do the people of Afghanistan want?

3) Are 1 & 2 compatible?

I suspect not.

[FloresdelaHoz]

Obama is intellectually and emotionally more intelligent than Kennedy . What Kennedy had was Irish cojones. Unfortunately, so far all I see with Obama's dealings with the GOP, special corporate interest and the military establishment is a nice guy who wants to make friends.

[CalebAbell]

He's more like a nice gelding who wants to make friends. He will cave in to the military and ramp up the war. To his credit, this may well be the last of the Imperial wars. Bankruptcy has a nice side effect in that it encourages diplomacy and peace.

[bweiss]

It isn't just the Military Industrial giant defense contractors, though thanks to Bush they are worse now than ever, but the military itself begs for these combat situations. Not the GI's as it were, no they do the fighting and dying, rather it is the Generals and Colonels who need such tours to enhance their portfolios and how have cozy relationships with those Defense Contractors who root for war like fans at an NFL game. And if some President who comes along wants to end their gravy train, it has not been unknown for them to take an active part in lying to, and attempting to manipulate the WH.

[FearlessFreep]

JFK may not have sent GIs into Vietnam, but he set the stage for LBJ to do so.

[Bobotheclown]

Nonsense. There were only a few thousand unarmed advisors there during JFK's administration and he had decided to withdraw them all after the next election. He saw that he had been tricked by Kruschev into the beginnings of a costly entanglement and vowed to beat Kruschev at his own game both in the 1962 missile crisis and in the 1963 Vietnam pullout. (He had pulled out the first 1000 advisors in November '63.) If any stage was set for trouble in Southeast Asia it was Eisenhower's authorization of military support to the French and its continuation as a covert war until 1960. It's true that JFK left this problem unresolved but that just might be because he was murdered before he had a chance to solve it. If you want to say it was his fault for not fixing Vietnam before he was murdered I guess you can but you would be absurd.

[Liberal2]

Some truth in what you assert. And let's remember, at heart LBJ was a ***SOUTHERN*** democrat.

He did have a streak of moral decency in signing civil rights legislation and Medicare.

[youknow]

Well said, I have read the book and if that does not hit home I do not know what will. It prudent to remember that the Military Industrial Complex is far more powerful than the Health Care Industry. To extricate ourselves from Afghanistan and of course from Iraq (on schedule) will determine whether President Obama will one day be considered a great President or not. He will no longer be able to do the talk it is time now to do the walk (walking the troops home)