A Realist Argument Against the Vietnam War

Why Realism is not the perpetrator of the failures in Vietnam

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“He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

As rubble covered the grounds of Europe and Japan after WWII, a new global order emerged in which the overwhelming power of the United States and the Soviet Union prevailed over all other powers. In such a system, the two superpowers conducted their conflicts through proxy warfare, rather than direct conflict. The most notable of which took place in Indochina, when Vietnamese Communists, led by Ho Chi Minh and funded by the USSR rose to power in North Vietnam. By the 1960s, the domino had fallen in the Viet Cong. As a response, the US deployed troops to the region, without ever declaring war. But even though America joined this conflict on the basis of containing Communism, its failures led to just the opposite - a Communist Soviet proxy defeating the beacon of democracy and capitalism in direct military conflict. In retrospect, politicians and constituents alike tend to blame realist thought for the failures in Indochina. But even though realism is often judged as the perpetrator for the Vietnam War, US-Indochina policy is the antithesis of realism because of its blind optimism, failure to accept realities of guerilla warfare, and overplaying the US’s hand.

Realist foreign policy tends to reject ideological or moral considerations in favor of pragmatic national interests. As an example, realists often criticize the Iraq War because the costs of such a war don’t nearly equate to even the best possible outcome, much less the real outcome. And yet, realism is consistently framed as the perpetrator of the failures in Vietnam. As the Crimson Historical Review puts it, “Those who associate [realism] with Kissinger may see it as a hyper—militaristic school of thought.” But this accusation is misplaced. Political realism, though lacking a concrete definition, can be understood as a school of thought which sees the world through a Hobbesian lens - international actors are merely unchecked kings on a chess board who direct their pawns on the basis of national interest, not moral obligation. Thus, realists often argue that conflict is justified if a threat is perceived, even if it is not yet fully realized. It is easy, therefore, to see how people so often frame political realism as the perpetrator of the Vietnam War. But that accusation rests upon the misconception that realists are, at the core, military hawks. Realists would use force when there is a clear threat; a clear means by which the state can achieve its goal; and a clear exit strategy if success is not achieved. None of the aforementioned criteria were established in the Vietnam War. There was not a clear, credible, and powerful threat that Ho Chi Minh posed to the United States; there was not a cogent military strategy to combat Vietnamese guerilla warfare, and there was no solid exit strategy, other than carpetbombing Southeast Asia. Thus, it is clear that the Vietnam War was not an example of political realism used in practice.

When assessing whether military action is warranted or not, a political realist would not only only consider the justifications for action, but also the chances of success. As Hans Morgenthau argues in his acclaimed book, Politics Among Nations, “A rational foreign policy minimizes risks and maximizes benefits and, hence, complies both with the moral precept of prudence and the political requirement of success.” Hans Morgenthau, one of the founders of classical realism, is explaining that to take action without favorability of success is generally counter-productive. In Vietnam, though on the surface it may have appeared that the might of the American military would surely overcome Communist guerillas, American policymakers failed to take into account the mindset and the tactics of the Viet Minh. The North Vietnamese Communists saw this fight as an existential battle between Western powers and national sovereignty. Death was not an end to be avoided, but a means to achieve a goal. As a Viet Minh leader stated, “You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and I will win.” This idea was fundamental to the way that the Viet Minh fought the Americans. But American policymakers consistently overlooked these harsh realities due to a blind sense of optimism, based on feeling rather than reality. As a former Secretary of State during the war stated, “I refuse to believe that a little fourth-rate power like North Vietnam doesn’t have a breaking point.” When in reality, it turned out to be the Americans who reached their breaking point before the Viet Minh. US policy failures in Vietnam are plentiful, and many of them stem from a false preconceived notion that simply because America has a stronger military than any other civilization in human history, it can, therefore, win every war. After roughly 58,000 American deaths and $120 billion dollars, The United States learned that even if you win every battle, you may not win every war.

A realist would argue that if a war is begun, the states involved ought to have the necessary means to finish it; otherwise defeat or stalemate is inevitable. When the United States gradually began the war on Viet Minh, the ideals were not necessarily unjustifyable. Containment theory was, in fact, constructed mostly by realists such as George Kennan. What branches away from the foundations of classical realism can be understood through former President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, “we will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to ensure the survival and the success of liberty.” Though a rhetorical and emotional masterclass, it was proved inaccurate that the US would be willing or able to truly “bear any burden” for the pursuit of liberty in the Viet Cong. The most important principle of international affairs is to avoid committing the state to ends which exceed the available means. In short, there are three main pillars that must all stand strong for a democracy to sustain itself in a military intervention; the state must have the necessary funds to continue the war, it must have enough skilled manpower to accomplish its goal, and it must have domestic support from its constituency. As the Vietnam War dragged on, domestic support was the first of those pillars that began to teeter. By the mid-1960s, nation-wide protests against the war raged on across college campuses. Once the domestic support fell apart, US policymakers had to make an impossible choice: either be the administration that loses the war to the Communists, or continue to aimlessly send young Americans and billions of dollars to a warzone, about which the people do not care. President Lyndon Johnson made his decision fairly clearly in his inaugural address: “I am not going to lose Vietnam. I am not going to be the president who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went.” But even while this decision was made, intelligence assessments proved that sending more troops and money to the region would not end the war, in fact, it may even weaken the US’s position: “I think humiliation would be more likely than the achievement of our objectives--even after we have paid terrible costs.” Essentially, countless American policymakers valued their own legacy over both the position of the United States on the global stage and the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans. Such a decision, though not uncommon in geopolitics, opposes realist thought because it does not value the state’s national interests at the forefront.

The Vietnam war is widely considered one of, if not the, greatest foreign policy failures in the history of the United States. But even though political realism is constantly blamed as the perpetrator for such a failure, the mistakes of US policy in Indochina actively oppose realist principles because of the US’s blind confidence, failure to understand the realities of guerilla warfare, and overestimating the might of the US military. When an unchecked king doesn’t move his pawns on the basis of national interests, it shouldn’t be a surprise when those pawns fall to another king who does.

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