- Lomperis , Timothy . 1987 . Reading the Wind, The Literature of the Vietnam War , Durham, North Carolina : Duke University Press . So large is this literature that analyses of even small portions of this scholarly material on Vietnam produce book-length manuscripts. The war also is producing a rich literary tradition. See
- Marlatt , Greta E. 1995 . "Researching the Vietnam Conflict Through U.S. Archival Sources" . Journalof Government Information , 22 ( 3 ) : 195 – 226 . Surveys of documentary sources produce article-length works. See
- Halperin , Morton H. 1974 . Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy , Washington DC : The Brookings Institution .
- Builder , Carl . 1989 . The Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis , Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press .
- Race , Jeffrey . 1972 . War Comes to Long An , Berkeley : University of California Press .
- Pike , Douglas . 1986 . PAVN: People's Army of Vietnam , Novato, CA : Presidio Press .
- Pike , Douglas . 1966 . VietCong , Cambridge : MIT Press .
- Hoopes , Townsend . 1969 . The Limits of Intervention , New York : David McKay .
- Berman , Larry . 1989 . Lyndon Johnson 's War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam , New York : W. W. Norton .
- Schandler , Herbert Y. 1977 . The Unmaking of the President , Princeton : Princeton University Press .
- Andrade , Dale . 1990 . Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War , Lexington, MA : D. C. Heath .
- Charles IkIe , Fred . 1991 . Every War Must End , New York : Columbia University Press .
- Foong Khong , Yuen . 1992 . Analogies at War , Princeton : Princeton University Press .
- Wirtz , James J. 1991 . The Tet Offensive , Ithaca : Cornell University Press . For a decision-making analysis of the US intelligence failure prior to the 1968 Tet Offensive, see
- Macdanald , Douglas . 1992 . Adventures in Chaos: American Intervention for Reform in the Third World , Cambridge : Harvard University Press .
- Avant , Deborah . 1994 . Political Institutions and Military Change: Lessons from Peripheral Wars , Ithaca : Cornell University Press .
- Van Creveld , Martin . 1985 . Command in War , Cambridge : Harvard University Press .
- Luttwak , Edward N. 1984 . The Pentagon and the Art of War , New York : Simon and Schuster .
- IkIe, Every War Must End, p. 2.
- Specter , Ronald H. 1985 . Eagle Against the Sun , 411 New York : The Free Press . In fact, reality can be worse than fiction. In October 1943, General Marshall radioed General MacArthur about his concern over newspaper reports of atrocities committed by Americans in the Pacific. One paper showed photos of the steps involved in "cooking and scraping of the heads of Japanese to prepare the skulls for souvenirs". See
- McNamara , Robert . 1995 . In Retrospect , New York : Times Books .
- Dean , Jodi . 1998 . Aliens in America: Conspiracy Cultures from Outerspace to Cyberspace , Ithaca : Cornell University Press . For a new look at today's popular conspiracies, see
- Hofstadter , Richard . 1965 . The Paranoid Style in American Politics , 3 – 40 . New York : Alfred A. Knopf .
- Harwood , Richard . 1995 . "As Wrong As McNamara" . The Washington Post National Weekly Edition , 24-30 April : 27
- Richardson , James L. 1994 . Crisis Diplomacy , 25 Cambridge, MA : Cambridge University Press . By contrast, some commentators take McNamara to task for his non-strategic approach (e.g., "crisis management") to national security issues. McNamara's reputation for technical rationality and efficiency suggests that he was ill-suited to lead some cabal. See
- Oberdorfer , Don . 17 September 1981 . "Oral History II" ” . In Ted Gittinger 17 September , Years after the war, Don Oberdorfer recounted the story of Walter Cronkite's post-Tet visit to Vietnam. Cronkite, horrified by the intensity and destruction of the battle, encountered General Abrams in the rains of Hue. He remarked to Abrams that he had not seen anythinglike this since the Second World War. Cronkite concluded that he, and the American public, fundamentally misunderstood the war, but he did not blame a government conspiracy for this misconception. Ironically, Oberdorfer noted that the Battle for Hue probably was the only engagement during the entire Vietnam War that resembled urban warfare on Second World War European battlefields. See Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, TX, p. 16.
- Wirtz , James J. 1999 . "A Review Essay of H. R. McMaster's Dereliction of Duty" . Political Science Quarterly , 114 ( 1 ) Spring : 131 – 6 . McMaster, Dereliction of Duty;
- Kinnard , Douglas . 1991 . The Certain Trumpet: Maxwell Taylor & the American Experience in Vietnam , Washington DC : Brassens .
- Travis-Cline , Suzan Ruth . 1995 . "Maintaining Power and Voicing Dissent: John Theodore McNaughton and the Vietnam War 1964-1967" . paper presented at the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations Annual Meeting . June 21-24 1995 . Annapolis, Maryland
- Freedman and Karsh . The Gulf Conflict 409 According to Freedman and Karsh, 148 Americans were killed and 458 were wounded in action during the Gulf War, remarkably light casualties that reflected both the outstanding professionalism of American forces and the lack of Iraqi will to fight. According to Luttwak, 18 Americans were killed and 116 wounded in the battle with 636 Cuban construction workers and 43 Cuban soldiers on Grenada. The outcome of the invasion was never in doubt, but from the American perspective, it was not a finely executed military operation. See
- Luttwak . The Pentagon and the An of War 51 – 8 .
- Adkin , Mark . 1989 . Urgent Fury: The Battle for Grenada , Lexington, MA : D. C. Heath .
- Woodward , Bob . 1991 . The Commanders , 89 New York : Pocket Star Books . It is possible that some senior officers recognized the criticism of the US military inherent in Weinberger's guidelines. Bob Woodward reports, for instance, that all of the Joint Chiefs except Chairman General John Vessey strongly opposed the doctrine. See
- Krepinevich , Andrew F. 1994 . "Recovery From Defeat: The US Army and Vietnam" ” . In The Aftermath of Defeat , Edited by: Andreopoulos , George and Selesky , Harold . 124 – 42 . New Haven : Yale University Press . In this context, Andrew Krepinevich has recently noted that American officers did not "forget" these lessons of Vietnam; they have deliberately ignored them. See
- Clifford , Clark and Holbroke , Richard . 1991 . "Annals of Government, Serving the President: The Vietnam Years-II" . TheNew Yorker , 13May : 78
- fafKVL, My American Journey, p. 519.
- Wirtz , James J. 1999 . "QDR 2001 : The Navy and the RMA" . National Security Studies Quarterly , V ( 4 ) Autumn : 43 – 60 .
- Mariano , Stephen . December 1995 . "Peacekeepers Attend the Never Again School" ” . December , Monterey, CA : Naval Postgraduate School . For an overview of writings by officers about Vietnam in professional US military journals, see MA Thesis
- Gacek , Christopher M. 1994 . The Logic of Force , New York : Columbia University Press . An excellent examination of the events and the ideas that shaped the "Never-again" school and tension over the conduct of limited war in American foreign policy, is in
- Clark , Mark . 1954 . From the Danube to the YaIu , 328 New York : Harper . Christopher Gacek dates the origins of the "Never-again" school to the aftermath of the Korean War, specifically the publication of Mark dark's memoirs, when the idea arose that the United States should never again be "mousetrapped" into a limited war in Asia. See
- Gacek . The Logic of 'Force 13
- Summers , Harry . 1982 . On Strategy , Novato : Presidio Press .
- Weinberger , Caspar W. 1984 . "The Use of Force and the National Will" . Baltimore Sun , 3 December : 11
- Handel , Michael I. 1992 . Masters of War: Sun Tzu, Clausewitz andjomini , 11 – 14 . London : Frank Cass . For a fine discussion of the similarities between the Weinberger doctrine and key Clausewitzian ideas, see
- Gacek . The Logic of Force 294
- Powell , Colin L· and Perisco , Joseph E. 1995 . My American Journey , 302 New York : Random House . General Colin Powell contributed to the formulation of the Weinberger Doctrine and represents one of its chief practitioners as National Security Affairs adviser in the Reagan administration and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in the Bush and Clinton administrations. Powell was present at the creation, so to speak, since he was working in Weinberger's office at the time the Secretary drafted his guidelines. See
- Head , William . 1993 . "Introduction: The Vietnam War - A Look Back, a Look Ahead" ” . In Looking Back on the Vietnam War , Edited by: Head , William and Grinter , Lawrence . 3 Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press . Before the outbreak of hostilities, Saddam Hussein repeatedly warned Americans that a war with Iraq would be another long, bloody and divisive struggle "like Vietnam". See
- Nathan , James and Oliver , James . "Reagan frequently indicated a desire to break out of what he believed was a debilitating 'Vietnam Syndrome' that overemphasized international complexity and limits on American power and thereby enfeebled American will." ” . According to
- Nathan , James A. and Oliver , James K. 1989 . United States Foreign Policy and World Order , 482 Boston : Scott, Forseman and Co. .
- Prados , John . 1995 . The Hidden History of the Vietnam War , Chicago : Ivan R. Dee .
- Michael Shafer , D. 1988 . Deadly Paradigms: The Failure of U.S. Counterinsurgency Policy , Princeton : Princeton University Press .
- Van Evera , Stephen . 1990 . "Why Europe Matters, Why the Third World Doesn't: American Grand Strategy After the Cold War" . The Journal of Strategic Studies , 13 ( 2 ) June : 1 – 51 . For example, see
- Deach , Michael . 1993 . When the Third WoHd Matters , Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press .
- Powell notes, for example, that the NCA was very concerned that General Norman Schwarzkopf had sufficient forces to carry out offensive and defensive operations in the Gulf War. See ibid,p. 487.
- Craig , Gordon A. and George , Alexander . 1995 . Force and Statecraft , 268 – 73 . New York : Oxford University Press . For a discussion of the impact of Weinberger's guidelines on Somalia and the Persian Gulf, see
- Eliot Morisen , Samuel . 1963 . The Two-Ocean War , 28 – 38 . Boston : Little Brown and Co. .
- Powell , Colin L. 1992/93 . "U.S. Forces: Challenges Ahead" . Foreign Affairs , 71 ( 5 ) Winter : 37 – 8 .
- Newland , Samuel J. and Johnson , Douglas V. 1988 . "The Military and Operational Significance of the Weinberger Doctrine" ” . In The Recourse to War: An Appraisal of the "Weinberger Doctrine" , Edited by: Sabrosky , Alan Ned and Sloan , Robert L. 177 Carlisle Barracks, PA : Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College .
- Cohen , Eliot . 1995 . Making Do With Less, or Coping With Upton's Ghost , Carlisle Barracks, PA : Strategic Studies Institute .
- Cohen , Eliot A. 1995 . "Playing Powell Politics" . ForeignAffairs , 74 ( 6 ) November/December : 104 – 5 . 108 – 9 .
- Sick , Gary . 1985 . AUFaIl Dawn: America's Tragic Encounter with Iran , 302 New York : Random House . Gary Sick minces no words in his judgement: "The rescue mission was a failure, but it was a failure of military execution, not of political judgement or command." See
- Luttwak , Edward N. 1984 . The Pentagon and the An of War , 50 New York : Simon & Schuster . The commission that was convened to explore the deaths of 241 Marines in Lebanon concluded that military commanders were responsible for failing to take elementary security precautions, billeting 350 Marines in one building and giving "unmilitary" instruction to the sentries (whose weapons were unloaded). See
- Powell . My American Journey 302 – 3 .
- 1993 . Lawrence Freedman and Efraim Karsh, The Gulf Conflict, 1990-1991 , 6 Princeton : Princeton University Press .
- Gacek . The Logic of Force 262 – 72 . Gacek notes, however, that Weinberger was primarily concerned with responding to Secretary Shultz's repeated public criticism of some members of the Reagan administration for their reluctance to use force to back up US diplomacy. See
- Reich , Robert B. 1987 . Tales of a New America , 6 – 8 . New York : Vintage Books . For an application of Reich's analysis to the debate over Vietnam policy
- Justin Gustainis , J. 1993 . American Rhetoric and the Vietnam War , 55 – 64 . Westport, CT : Praeger .
- Hofstadter . The Paranoid Style 39 According to Hofstadter, "Catastrophe or the fear of catastrophe is most likely to elicit the syndrome of paranoid rhetoric",
- Prange , Gordon . 1981 . At Dawn We Slept , New York : McGraw-Hill . (Appendix "Revisionists Revisited")
- Brands , H. W. 1993 . The Devil We Knew: Americans and the Cold War , 37 – 8 . New York : Oxford University Press .
- LaFeber , Walter . 1989 . The American Age , 543 New York : W. W. Norton .
- Kimball , Jeffrey P. 1988 . "The Stab-in-the-Back Legend and the Vietnam War" . Armed Forces and Society , 14 Spring : 433 – 58 .
- Gustainis . American Rhetoric and the Vietnam War 143 On Rambo's contribution to the "stab-in-the-back" thesis see
- Head , William . "Introduction" ” . 2
- PeIz , Stephen . 1990 . "Vietnam: Another Stroll Down Alibi Alley" . Diplomatic History , 14 : 123
- Gates , John M. 1993 . "If at First You Don't Succeed, Try to Rewrite History. Revisionism and the Vietnam War" ” . In Looking Back on the Vietnam War , Edited by: Head , William and Grinter , Lawrence . 177 – 89 . Westport, CT : Greenwood Press .
- Buzzanco , Robert . 1996 . Masters of War , Cambridge : Cambridge University Press .
- Prados . The Hidden History of the Vietnam War 105
- Stanton , Shelby . 1985 . The Rise and Fall of an American Army , 85 Novato : Presidio Press . Shelby Stanton notes, for instance, that by some measures of effectiveness, US ground forces did not always fare well against the North Vietnamese and Vietcong. In 1966,88 per cent of military engagements were started by the enemy and about half of these were ambushes. Apparently, America's opponents were free to seek and break off combat at their initiative. See
- Reich . 1987 . Tales of a New America , 6 – 8 . New York : Vintage Books . The image of the heroic individual is similar to Reich's discussion of the "triumphant individual", the Horatio Alger myth that underlies political discourse in the United States. See
- Wirtz , James J. 1991 . "Intelligence to Please? The Order of Battle Controversy During the Vietnam War" . Political Science Quarterly , 106 ( 2 ) Summer : 261 On this phenomenon in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, see
- Wirtz . "Intelligence to Please" ” . 239 – 63 . On the Adams charges, see
- Adler , Renata . 1986 . Reckless Disregard , New York : Knopf .
- Brewin , Bob and Shaw , Sydney . 1987 . Vietnam on Trial , New York : Atheneum .
- Hennesy , Michael . 1990 . "The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception Revisited" ” . In Deception Operations: Studies in the East-West Context , Edited by: Charters , David and Tugwell , Maurice . 373 – 92 . London : Brassey's .
- Jones , Brace . 1987 . War Without Windows: A True Account of a Young Army Officer Trapped in an Intelligence Cover-up in Vietnam , New York : Vanguard Press .
- G.Sarris , Louis . 1995 . "McNamara'sWar,andMine" . New YorkTimes , 5 September : A17
- Sheehan , Neil . 1988 . A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam , 292 – 305 . New York : Random House .
- Ibid., p. 293
- 1985 . Vietnam: A Documentary Collection - Westmoreland v. CBS , New York : Clearwater Publishing . "The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception", transcript of 23 January 1982 broadcast on CBS Television Network, 1, listed as Joint Exhibit #1 in
- 1995 . "Mr McNamara's War" . New York Times , 12 April : A14 Theodore Draper has recently noted that The Times is wrong to allege that McNamara did not make known his reservations about the war until the publication of his book. In November 1965, McNamara first questioned American policy vis-a-vis Vietnam in a memo to President Johnson. Draper finds this omission on the part of The Times' editorial staff odd, since the memorandum is contained in the Pentagon Papers that were published by the New York Times starting on 13 June 1971. See
- Draper , Theodore . 1995 . "The Abuse of McNamara" . The New York Review , 25 May : 16
- Alter , Jonathan . 1995 . "Confessing the Sins of Vietnam" . Newsweek , April : 40 – 1 . Halberstam, quoted in
- Wirtz . "Intelligence to Please" ” . 261
- Herring, LBJ and Vietnam, pp. 30-6.
Defense Analysis
Volume 17, 2001 - Issue 1