Wrong War: Why We Lost in Vietnam

by Jeffrey Record

Book Overview

Was the U.S. military prevented from achieving victory in Vietnam by poor decisions made by civilian leaders, a hostile media, and the antiwar movement, or was it doomed to failure from the start?... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 155750699X
• ISBN13: 9781557506993
• Release Date: June 1998
• Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Insightful, well-balanced--a good corrective to Michael Lind

Jeffrey Record is an internationally respected defense analyst who has served as a legislative assistant to Sen. Nunn and Sen. Bentsen, also working as a scholar at the Brookings Institution and the Hudson Institute. This is no left-wing peacenik! His very astute book, based on hefty research and years of teaching courses on the Vietnam War, is a bit repetitive in some places but well-worth reading--the repetition is probably needed because he is out to counter some very entrenched myths about the "international communist conspiracy," North Vietnam's relationship to China, the civilian and military roles in Vietnam, etc. It is curious that Michael Lind has gotten much more press and attention from readers for his much-criticized book, Vietnam, The Necessary War, whereas Record's well-researched, balanced work has received far more consistently positive critical reviews, yet much less widespread attention. Record makes many crucial points...Get the book and read it. And then let's see if we can get Record and Michael Lind to have a long public debate--a debate that Record would easily win before any impartial jury. We need to demolish the myths and begin to heal the great divide in our country over this disastrous, unwinnable war.

Why Vietnam Was, "The Wrong War!"

Twenty-five years after the fall of Saigon, antagonists on the right and left are still debating whether we could have "won" in Vietnam. "The Wrong War" exposes the rationale behind U.S. decision making and examines alternatives that could and perhaps should have been examined, and evaluates their prospects for success. Dr. Record shows how U.S. decision makers translated lessons learned from World War II to Vietnam. Surely, a military that destroyed Germany and Japan could easily defeat a pre-industrial state like Vietnam. The reasons why we could not and did not are exposed in this work. These include underestimating the stamina of the Viet-Cong and our insistence on using conventional tactics while fighting an unconventinal war. The physical and psychological impacts of the militaries' rotation policy and preoccupation with creature comfort is also examined critically.He also analyzes our South Vietnamese allies militarily and politically and takes a critical look at the civilian-military conflict that raged in Washington. One of the key issues was mobilization of the reserves. Would it have made a difference? In all areas, he looks at alternative strategies and evaluates their chances for success. There is no guarantee these solutions would have worked any better than the ones employed.Dr. Record applies Omar Bradleys' famous quote about Korea to Vietnam. It was, "the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong enemy." His arguments are presented clearly and succinctly in a book that takes aim at antagonists on both sides of the Vietnam debate. While LBJ, McNamara, etc. were often wrong, there is no evidence that other strategies would have fundamentally changed the situtation.This is an excellent work that explodes the myths that we could have "won" in Vietnam using different approaches at a cost acceptable to the American people morally and politically. In less than 200 pages, the author examines virtually every aspect of the war. No one involved comes out as having the moral or political courage of their convictions sufficient to do what was in the best interest of the nation. There is certainly a lesson to be learned here: Under no circumstance should we go to war without clearly defining our objectives and carefully examining our chances of success. Today, as we have troops employed all over the world, this is too important a lesson to overlook.