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The Myth of Air Power
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 September 2018
Extract
Once again the American public is subjected to reports about the sensational effects of bombing against North Vietnam and its offensive in the South. New guided, or “smart,” bombs and the hitting of targets far beyond anything authorized at the height of the 1965-68 campaign have led to spectacular claims for the efficacy of air power in blunting the thrust of North Vietnam's Easter offensive. The Pentagon emphasis is now almost exclusively upon the success of air power in achieveing military goals; far less is claimed, at least publicly,, for bombing as a means of ending the war.
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- Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 1972
References
page 27 note • An interesting article by Juan Vasquez in the New York Times (June 9, 1972) reflects this shift. Each month the claims being made for the present bombing campaign become less extravagant and more pessimistic. See the New York Times of July 8, p. 51, and an Air Force backgrounder of August 24 reported in the Washington Post of August 25.
page 28 note • Similar evidence about VC/North Vietnamese requirements were available to President Nixon in National Security Memorandum 1 prepared by Henry Kissinger's staff (see the New York Times, April 26, 1972).
page 29 note • See Alexander L. George, et al., The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy: Laos, Cuba, Vietnam (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971) and Chester Cooper, The Lost Crusade (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1970).
page 30 note • The failure of American diplomacy to exert a significant role in the Vietnam war must be seen as one of the greatest derelictions and defeats for American foreign policy. There comes a point at which Presidents must be told that the war is not worth the price, that no commitment can be as one-sided and costly as the U.S. commitment to Saigon, and that “a calculated accommodation may serve to save face in the long run, despite the momentary set-back it entails” (Littauer and Uphoff). The unlimited dependence upon bombing cannot be understood without taking account of the extent to which the foreign policy control in the Vietnam war was abdicated to the military.
page 32 note • Corroboration for many of their findings can be found in National Security Memorandum One prepared for the President at the beginning of 1969. A comprehensive summary of the otherwise secret 548-page document can be found in the Congressional Record, May 10, 1972, pp. E 4975-5005.
page 33 note • This interposition is based upon the Joint Chiefs insistence ebewhere in the document that “victory” can be had or “a strong non-Communist political role assured” by pursuing the war until conditions essential to the preservation and sovereignty of South Vietnam are attained. The military reasoning for why the North Vietnamese negotiators are in Paris provides an astonishing example of the uncritical assumption behind Pentagon reasoning. It reveals the astonishing naiveti in the High Command about the deterrent effects of air power in Vietnam despite the experience to the contrary provided by the war itself.
page 34 note • Something of the sensitivity of the Pentagon and its Congressional defenders to the costs of the air war can be gotten from the House Armed Services Committee Hearing on House Resolution 918 of April 18, 1972.