babyhueypnewton posted:

There are a bunch of thoughts I have on this but I'm interested in your thoughts having read a bunch about both the anti-war movement in America and the USSR-China cooperation in Vietnam.

I'm hesitant to address these questions because so far all I've really read is one account. Take what I'm saying with a grain of salt because at this point I'm essentially a conduit for Karnow's opinion (without Karnow's obvious 'great man of history' trappings). On USSR-China, Karnow argues that while there were all sorts of political disagreements and tensions between USSR & China (and both sides with North Vietnam), both were interested in having ties with North Vietnam so neither were prepared to stop giving aid and risk some sort of falling out. Karnow simply doesn't cover this side of the war in any sort of detail - his discussions of the North Vietnamese is limited to their military strategy and diplomatic bargaining with America... almost no coverage of, say, land reform. I'm hoping that other books I read have a more robust discussion of USSR, Chinese and North Vietnamese relations so that I can cross-reference it with the little that Karnow did write.

Fascinating that 50 percent approval for Nixon was considered low compared to today's regular 20-40% approvals. Obviously there are many reasons for this and the measurement is pretty useless but I think the book accidentally shows something you mentioned earlier: the widespread disapproval of the Vietnam war among the labor aristocracy and petty-bourgeois students appears to be a myth. The entire edifice of new leftism, which is based on May 68, the anti-Vietnam war movement, anti-soviet Maoists, and the rise of identity politics coalitions, appears to be an excuse for petty bourgeois adventurism and postmodern idealism.

In some ways it's a historical accident that Vietnam wasn't bombed to hell before reuniting, Watergate was far more influential on the American people's disapproval of major military action than actual war crimes but also the opposition of conservative elites and businessmen (who don't exist anymore) who are represented in Congress actually mattered. I've become more skeptical about the entire historical remembering of that period, there are so many 'truths' on the left which are simply wrong.

The 50% approval rating was not particularly low, Karnow mentions it because it was slowly slipping coming into an election year (before rising again in time for his election to a second term). I guess it clashes with popular narrative but Nixon was a relatively popular president for the first 4 years or so.



You'll notice the sharp drop in early 1973 and at the end he's hovering at about ~25% - this is Watergate of course. The protests are depicted as having some effect on the Nixon administration, but nothing decisive. Kissinger is depicted as being especially upset by some of them (as he's from the elite academic sphere - Harvard)...

"Roger Morris, one of the assistants who left his staff, recalled that Kissinger was chronically alarmed by demonstrations, which summoned up the Nazi mobs of Germany during his childhood" (page 611)

(lmao!) (unclear here who's making the Nazi comparison; Morris, Karnow or Kissinger... presumably Kissinger)

While it annoys them, it never seems to make any appreciable change in Nixon's policies. And why would it really, they're hippies and "bums". Let's take for example protests in the context of increasing presence in Cambodia in April/May 1970:

"The antiwar movement at home, which he had skillfully subdued, suddenly erupted again in the biggest protests to date. A large proportion of the American people, traditionally loyal to the president in crucial moments, supported the Cambodian incursions" (page 610)

Interesting that Karnow notes here that despite the largest protests to date, a "large proportion" still support military action (wish he had cited some numbers here). Nixon's response to staff on how to handle congressional critics was "don't worry about divisiveness. Having drawn the sword, don't take it out - stick it in hard... Hit 'em hard in the gut. No defensiveness" (page 612)

Here's a section in which Nixon is not worried by the protests so much, but rather, as you said, elite conservative opinion:


(page 626)

Karnow draws a connection between the Watergate break-in that brought down Nixon and criminality regarding people like Daniel Ellsberg, and it seems only in this tenuous sense that Vietnam could be said to have led to Nixon's downfall.

We can look at LBJs opinion polls to see that he was effected far more by public opinion on Vietnam, reaching about 35% at his lowest:



LBJs decisions regarding Vietnam essentially tore the Democrat party apart - he faced credible challenges in the 1968 Democrat primary from Eugene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy before dropping his candidacy altogether.


(page 580-581)

But the American people didn't vote for Eugene McCarthy (fringe stubborn pinko apparently), or Bobby Kennedy (assassinated), or even Hubert Humphrey. They voted for Tricky Dick Nixon.

I'll again highlight a section I've posted before in my summary of chapter 14 of Karnow:



That is, while opposition to the war was significant in 1967, a majority wanted tougher action and the amount of American casualties was the only unacceptable part of the war.

In wrapping this up, I'll say that one thing that comes through very strongly in Karnow is that America never really had a chance in Vietnam (short of bombing North Vietnam into complete rubble or occupying South Vietnam with a half million troops indefinitely). The anti-war movement was not the decisive factor, nor was it the politicians "letting our boys down and making them fight with one hand behind their back" or whatever conservative crap (although those factors constrained American military strategy somewhat) - it was the strategic and political superiority of the communist movement in Vietnam that won. All the US could do was delay liberation by a decade or so.

Edited by Chthonic_Goat_666 (Feb. 5, 2016 01:20:23)

babyhueypnewton posted:

The entire edifice of new leftism, which is based on May 68, the anti-Vietnam war movement, anti-soviet Maoists, and the rise of identity politics coalitions,

i get what you're saying but to amerikkkan ears this is like saying the 1960s were based on drugs, enstatite chondrites, rock 'n' roll, and pike warfare against armored cavalry. no one in the u.s. really remembers that the new left involved white maoists, that the weathermen had context, etc.

EmanuelaBrolandi posted:

The intro is Sartre lol

ah same here. i've read mixed stuff online about the bhabha intro so i was curious.

Makeshift_Swahili posted:

this 'reading group' will be pretty informal, i've seen too many online reading groups fail to try to stick to any strict regimen.

swampman posted:

From military art of people's war






There is a much longer essay specifically on how Giap pulled off Dien Bien Phu anyway, that I will set into

Definitely interested in seeing more of this. Love military strategy. It's surprisingly not entirely material, which is amazing for something that can decisively change history.

Red_Canadian posted:

Definitely interested in seeing more of this. Love military strategy. It's surprisingly not entirely material, which is amazing for something that can decisively change history.

what do you mean by "not entirely material"?

Makeshift_Swahili posted:

(page 530)

Notice that Karnow underreports the amount of civilians killed at Mylai, which is at least 347 even by the U.S Army’s own admission (no mention of the gang-rapes either). I might go check a later edition of the book when I get the chance because it seems the most egregious error so far (to my untrained eyes).

Just checked a 1994 edition and the error was not corrected