Nor was the statistical basis of attrition a success, with the ‘body count’ and ‘hamlet evaluation scheme’ notoriously open to corruption and abuse. There was a widespread feeling that although Pentagon data banks might be brimming with completed questionnaires and ‘management indicators’, these were an inappropriate tool for generating strategic insights or fighting a real shooting war. In many quarters Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara51 was held to be personally responsible for foisting the abstract and impersonal methods of business accountancy upon a profession which ought to have looked more to charismatic leadership and traditional brands of wisdom.
This particular debate came to a head in the early 1980s as a result of attempts to assimilate a new generation of weapons for conventional warfare. In its field manual FM100–5, dated 1976, the army had accepted a style of ‘active defense’ in Germany which relied on moving forces sideways from quiet sectors in the front line, to concentrate their effort and firepower against incoming enemy spearheads at identified points of threat. Fire from aircraft and rockets using newly emergent technology, or ‘ET’,52 would provide a further ‘combat multiplier’ that could allow the defender to fight outnumbered and win. To give this its maximum effect, statistical calculations were developed to estimate the precise amount of fire that would have to be stacked up against each enemy spearhead in order to stop it; or, in the jargon, how much ‘servicing’ each target would require.
This doctrine for conventional warfare enjoyed the full backing of the arms industry and TRADOC,53 but it was soon being questioned by those who saw all too many parallels with the approach used in Vietnam. ‘Active Defense’ was criticised for being inactive and unaggressive, relying once again on attrition, firepower and a ‘managerial’ fix to a military problem. At an operational level it involved waiting passively for the enemy to choose his own time and place to advance into friendly territory, then it invoked statistical mumbo jumbo to calculate a level of attrition that might stop him. Manoeuvre would be relevant only out of contact with the enemy, as ‘reserves’ were moved away from sections of the front line which were thought unlikely to be threatened. This in turn would mean that valuable real estate was left abandoned and open to subsequent occupation by the enemy, just as it had been in Vietnam. As in Vietnam, also, firepower was still supposed to do the trick almost alone. Yet the new ET weapons, from which so much was promised, could easily be seen as little more than descendants of the ‘electronic battlefield’ which had achieved only very mixed results in combat.54
As the salesmen of ever more elaborate ET weapons sought to refine their doctrine for ‘deep strike’ and the air-land battle of the year 2000,55 many military men recoiled instinctively against their root assumptions. Notable among these was General Starry, the new commander of TRADOC itself, and earlier a champion of armoured mobility in Vietnam.56 His vision of the ‘extended battlefield’ included ground forces supplementing standoff firepower strikes with armoured and heli-borne counter-attacks. By hitting the rear or forward enemy echelons, their front-line troops could be starved of logistic support and would be easier to fight in the normal way. By hitting subsequent reinforcement echelons, the enemy already in action could be kept to a manageable number. This became a very influential line of argument indeed. Its more technological strand was taken up in the ‘Follow-on Forces Attack’ (FOFA) concept elaborated by General Rogers, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe. Meanwhile, a less hardware-based version surfaced in the army’s new edition of FM100–5, issued in 1982.57
The new field manual was the army’s considered response to new technology, but inspired by the lessons of Vietnam. With some distinct echoes of de Grandmaison, it called for a return to the spirit of the offensive, seizure of the operational initiative and a rejection of the all-firepower, all-attrition style of battle. Even though NATO was still forbidden to initiate war by launching a spoiling attack or pre-emptive strike, as the Israelis had done in 1967, at least a number of other restrictions could be lifted. There could be decisive manoeuvre and hot pursuit, such as the Israelis had demonstrated by their canal counter-crossing at ‘Chinese Farm’ in 1973. If the enemy entered friendly territory, he had to understand that we might not rest purely on the defensive, but might retaliate back into his territory: we might ‘take tokens’ from him, to pressure him into making peace and relinquishing what he had taken from us.58 In short, in the crude behaviourist terms so dear to revanchists, the enemy had to be made to pay.
Deep strike, the extended battlefield, FOFA and FM100–5/1982 all shared a willingness to use conventional weapons, not only within sight of NATO’s front line, but far beyond the horizon and sometimes hundreds of miles beyond. Not even the most gutsy disciple of Patton wanted to dispense completely with long-range ET weapons, electronic surveillance aids or airmobile assaults, although there was a considerable debate about just how far ahead of the fighting troops one should try to look, shoot or fly helicopters.59 On the whole the ‘soldiers’ tended to want plenty of reliable assets manageably close to their own FEBA, while the ‘scientists’ were often more ready to gamble on fewer but more sophisticated weapons designed to achieve wonderful things at greater distances. What neither of them, nor the burgeoning ‘light infantry’ lobby, was apparently ready to swallow, however, was a low- to medium-tech, manpower-intensive ‘non-provocative defence’ such as was being recommended by a number of European interest groups, not uniquely on the far left.60 It was apparently an irreducible feature of America’s military culture, no less than of its geo-political and economic situation, that any large force maintained overseas had to be especially strong on hardware in proportion to its manpower. If large masses of foot soldiers were required, they should be provided by the host nation. This was an approach that had been very evident in Vietnam, but it was not subjected to questioning thereafter. An American army corps in Germany is still almost twice as strong in heavy weapons as some of its West European equivalents, and a ‘brigade’ can sometimes be almost as strong as the ‘division’ in some other armies.
As far as the purely tactical lessons of Vietnam are concerned, there is a clear continuity in American thinking between their practice in South East Asia in the 1960s and their projections for a possible battle for Germany in the 1990s. It is slightly ironic that they were criticised for trying to master a low-intensity Viet Cong campaign using high-intensity NATO weapons, since today they have brought updated versions of their counter-insurgency equipment back into the big league of European warfare. The A-10 anti-tank aircraft, for example, is modelled on the slow-moving, heavily-armoured, propeller-driven close-support aircraft of the jungle war, just as the Blackhawk and Apache attack helicopters represent the third generation of development from the humble ‘Huey Hog’ rocket-firing Iroquois. Furthermore, these weapons would often be used in roles similar to those seen in Vietnam, delivering heavy air-to-ground prep fires to suppress flak, followed by assault from heli-borne light infantry protected by gunships.61 Whether or not the dense air defence environment to be expected in Europe could actually be suppressed by these means is a moot point. In 1982 the Israelis successfully mastered Syrian defences in the Beka’a Valley, and there has been much development of both ECMs (electronic counter-measures) and ‘smart’ flak-seeking ammunition even since then. On the other hand, the vulnerability of anything flying low and slow surely remains axiomatic.
The technology for electronic battlefield surveillance has mightily advanced since its early halting steps in 1967–8. The ‘Buffalo Hunter’ RPVs (remotely piloted vehicles) which turned upside down and photographed the sky instead of the Son Tay POW camp in 197062, have been replaced by ‘Super-drones’ capable of relaying secure realtime television pictures of the evolving combat. AWACS and the TR-1 now supplement the Mohawk, and a brand new range of ground sensors can ‘wire the battlefield like a pin-table’ far more effectively than was possible on the Ho Chi Minh trail during the Igloo White programme. Night can be made into day as never befo
re, although in fairness it must be remembered that the flareships and infra-red scanners widely deployed in the 1960s had already moved a considerable distance down that road. When the Israelis were caught out without them on the Golan in 1973, they were merely behind the times.
In armoured warfare itself the Americans now have a brand-new set of tanks and APCs, and even the advanced Sheridan missile-firing tank of 1966 is today considered something of an anachronism. The powerful turbine-engined Ml Abrams main battle tank perhaps owes little to the Vietnam war apart from its name; but there is continuity through the Mechanised Infantry Combat Vehicle and Infantry Fighting Vehicle, which incorporate lessons learned with the ARVN’s extemporised M113 ACAVs (‘Armoured Cavalry Assault Vehicles’).63 Helicopters firing TOW anti-tank missiles were also combat proven during the 1972 Easter offensive, and registered a high rate of tank kills. They would have an important part to play in any future war. Another significant development for the infantry in Vietnam was personal body armour, which is now definitely here to stay, extending even to mine-resistant boots. In Vietnam mines were a powerful deterrent to mobility, and the principal cause of US casualties. In the Falklands, ten years later, they were still often undetectable. The mine-resistant boot must hence surely be hailed as a triumph of the offensive spirit, and a turning point in the combat survivability of the foot soldier.
A very different type of question raised by the Vietnam war lay in the whole realm of military ethics and soldierly virtue. During the years of Vietnamisation and withdrawal, from 1968 to 1973, the army had suffered terrible epidemics of demoralisation. Its soldiers were widely denounced not only for the My Lai massacre and other atrocities, but also for drug abuse, Black Power militancy, combat refusal, insubordination and ‘fragging’ attacks on officers. Abolition of the draft and the introduction of some specific rehabilitation programmes went far towards rectifying these problems,64 although there have also been more recent complaints that the zero-draft army attracts low-quality recruits who are motivated more by money than by esprit de corps. Modern equipment is alleged to be too complex and fragile for its would-be operators in the junior ranks, which suggests that reforms are needed either to simplify the equipment or improve troop quality, or preferably both.
A major difficulty encountered by the army in its attempt to get to grips with these problems has always been its own enormous size, even after the post-Vietnam demobilisation. It is no easy task, even at the best of times, to restructure an organisation of almost a million members. It is still harder to inculcate that elusive quality of ‘combat motivation’, least of all in times of profound peace. A further American difficulty was that many of the relevant academic studies were written in a strongly sociological style which seemed to hark straight back to McNamara’s cost-benefit analysis and business efficiency ethos. An essentially ‘humanities’ subject was often obscured by inappropriately ‘scientific’ language, and the impersonality of bureaucracy was only too easily reinforced.
This was of relevance to a second, still more damning wave of post-Vietnam criticism, namely a widespread dissatisfaction with the performance of the officer corps.65 Not only had officers failed to stave off the general demoralisation towards the end of the war, but they had seemed to connive in a remote administrative system which rewarded peace-time qualities rather than true military efficiency. The individual officer’s integrity had been assaulted in Vietnam by the implied pressures of the body count and the efficiency rating system. Too many under-deserved decorations had been awarded to too many ‘combat typists’ and ‘ticket punchers’. Too many officers were too far detached from their men and too ‘career-oriented’ rather than ‘mission-oriented’. The charge of ‘management rather than leadership’ refused to go away.
The killing of 231 US marines by a suicide bomber at Beirut airport, 23 October 1983, seemed to suggest that little had really changed. A special commission set up by the Defense Department concluded there had been errors of operational assessment, tactics, intelligence and inter-service co-operation.66 Nor was the ultimately successful invasion of Grenada in the same year unattended by its own share of mistakes.67 Seven battalions were needed to overwhelm between 50 and 200 armed enemy, producing nearly 400 casualties to civilians and 80 to friendly troops. Two-thirds of the US casualties were inflicted by friendly forces or by accident – a figure which compares badly with 7% in the battle of the Wilderness, 1864,68 and surely no more than 25% in Vietnam.69 Six Blackhawks and twelve other helicopters are thought to have been lost in the Grenada invasion – around 20% of the total number employed – against an enemy armed only with rifles and 0.5 cal machine guns.70 No surprise was achieved, intelligence and reconnaissance were poor, tactics were still based on ‘manoeuvre then fire’, and there were grave defects in that hardy perennial, inter-service co-operation. Nevertheless, a staggering total of some 19,600 medals were awarded for the operation, including 8,633 by the army.71
There have been widespread calls to reform the professional structure of the US armed forces, and to heighten their military virtues. Indeed, the interest in German military excellence during the two World Wars may be seen as a symptom of this movement,72 as may American admiration for the British victory in the Falklands in 1982. It is perhaps no accident that the new US infantry helmet has a shape reminiscent of that of the Wehrmacht, or that moves have already been made to adopt a ‘regimental system’ consciously modelled on certain elements of the British structure. American borrowing from European practice is a tradition dating back to von Steuben’s drill in the revolutionary war, and it is fascinating to see its revival in modern times.
Any attempt to instil martial values into an advanced twentieth-century society must certainly face some daunting cultural obstacles. At Alamein Montgomery had already been worried about these, and had taken steps to ensure his men were ‘worked up into a great state of enthusiasm’, while for D Day he wanted them to ‘see red’.73 Much of the basic training for Vietnam was designed to achieve a similar mental attitude, and was largely successful until at least 1968.74 As we have discovered, however, humanitarian pressures to evacuate the dead and wounded could not be prevented from diverting the course of battles, or producing images for the home front which could only feed anti-war propaganda. Conversely, the battle police did not enforce attendance in firefights in the homicidal manner habitual to the Soviet army even in limited wars like Afghanistan in the 1980s, or the military promenade through Czechoslovakia in 1968. In the American forces combat morale could come only from the inside, but the ‘clause of unlimited liability’ which any soldier must accept was sometimes quite naturally relegated to a low priority in a ‘limited’ war.
Perhaps unavoidably, post-war American society was to prove a fertile breeding ground for certain related cults, each of which has subtly changed the way in which military activity is viewed. Natural concern for the missing and prisoners, for example, had already led to such escapades as the Son Tay raid in 1970;75 but during the following two decades it was to grow into a national obsession of almost mythic proportions. Equally, the combat veteran unable to adjust back to civilian life became an instantly recognised stereotype. Whether he was a psychotic killer to be feared or a suicidal depressive to be pitied, he was generally seen as a direct product of the war and a part of the war’s tragedy.76 The very many combat veterans who became perfectly mature and well-integrated citizens, it seems, have somehow been overlooked in the popular perception.
Contemplation of combat stress itself became something of a cult, as post-1918 revulsion against heavy battle casualties was now bizarrely mirrored in a post-1973 revulsion against battle’s mental tensions. After Vietnam everyone thought they knew the war had been terrible, but the actual list of US dead and wounded was relatively short for a war of such duration and importance. Even Korea, where the butcher’s bill had been of comparable size, had been compressed into three short years in contrast with more than eight for Vietnam.77 Apparently ‘the horror’78
of Vietnam had to be sought at a more psychic level, rather than simply in massed physical slaughter. Fear of death; the ironies of fighting for an unseizable, inessential objective; or the guilt of killing non-combatants: these all made more interesting press coverage than either the actual death of American soldiers, or the traditional sombre undertones of straightforward mourning.
Increased interest in the psychological aspects of battle was perhaps inevitable in a society whose children were becoming ever more sophisticated, leisured and sheltered. The sensitive modern man found combat itself a more alien state than had his predecessors, and had to make a more deliberate effort of will to come to terms with it. It was surely no accident that an excessive aura of toughness became attached to élites like the Lurps or Green Berets, who still took battle on the same sort of terms that had at one time been common to whole armies. By ‘standing still’ they were preserving the ruggedness of past generations, at a time when the modern generation felt itself weakening.
There was another side to the story, however, since it was also commonly believed that a new generation of weapon technology was imposing unprecedented mental pressures upon men in battle. The theory that the men were getting softer was one thing: the apparent hardening of the firepower was quite another. This point emerged strongly from John Keegan’s book The Face of Battle,79 which charted the stages by which the ‘fear, noise and fatigue’ of combat had become successively more stressful through the centuries, up to the point where modern battle would presumably soon become so frightful that it would disappear entirely. His message was one which struck many chords with American readers in the post-Vietnam era.
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