Exit Strategies: Iraq and the Republic of South Vietnam
Exit Strategies: Iraq and the Republic of South Vietnam
by Robert Tollast
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Editor’s Note. This essay is an interview with James H. Willbanks with initial commentary added by Robert Tollast. In 1972 James H. Willbanks was one of a handful of American advisers to the South Vietnamese Army at the battle of An Loc, one of the most desperate and fearsome battles of the entire war. A detailed account of this battle, as well as the political and military problems of Vietnamization can be found in his book Abandoning Vietnam: How America left and South Vietnam lost its war.
James Willbanks is now a distinguished historian of the war in South East Asia, and is keen to stress that his expertise does not lie with events in Iraq. Like many observers of events following the 2003 invasion, he couldn’t help noticing uncanny similarities, which he mentions in the forward to Abandoning Vietnam. However, as a professional historian he understands the pitfalls of blandly comparing events separated by a gulf of time, distance and culture.
As David Petraeus wrote in the autumn 1986 issue of Parameters,
“We should beware literal application of lessons extracted from Vietnam, or any other past event, to present or future problems without due regard for the specific circumstances that surround those problems.”
While being cautious, Petraeus states that there is still much to learn from Vietnam. Looking back at events since 2003, hard lessons have again emerged in the effort to build armies from societies defined by poverty and upheaval. It would seem that many of these issues have re-appeared.
A lot of these problems will be familiar to readers of the SWJ reading list. Corrupt security forces, often with a sectarian or ethnic prejudice, who intimidate the population. Corrupt governance, leaders who are appointed because of their connections and armies too young to cope with logistics capacity, are just some of these difficulties.
Download The Full Article: Exit Strategies: Iraq and the Republic of South Vietnam
Robert Tollast is an English Literature Graduate from Royal Holloway University of London and has published articles for the finance publication AccountingWEB. He became interested in events in Iraq through his late father, who was a Military Intelligence Officer in Iraq with General Sir Maitland Willson’s Persia/ Iraq force (Paiforce) in 1942. He is currently learning Arabic and would be interested one day to visit Iraq, although he concedes this is currently quite an eccentric ambition.
