As 1967 ended, the United States was engaged in a no-win struggle against a national insurgency within a civil war in Vietnam. A Texan president feared the growing power of China. The next winter, an unexpected enemy offensive revealed the political and military weakness of U.S. policy, the unpopular president was under strong attack by the junior Democratic U.S. Senator from New York; there was a looming crisis with North Korea.
An inconclusive Mideast victory had been won by our ally. Within three years, Republican Richard Nixon and the two Democratic Sens. Kennedy ? Robert and Edward ? had published calls for a new, peaceful approach to Red China.
Although Vietnam garnered most news attention, China most concerned President Lyndon Johnson, who worried that China might intervene militarily with a massive ground invasion of Southeast Asia, similar to its actions in Korea in 1950. He already knew that Vietnam counted for nothing next to China.
Publicly, the Texan president?s policy was “stay the course,” even though he knew that the war and the state it backed was doomed to failure. Early in 1968, Mr. Nixon said privately that the war could not be won by us because its people opposed foreign domination. Despite this, as president during 1969-74, his policy was “Peace with Honor,” a catch phrase for a war that we lost politically, but only after 58,000 American and 3.25 million Vietnamese deaths.
Have things changed a generation later, as we approach 2007-10?
As 2006 unfolds, the United States again is engaged in another Vietnam, one that ? likes its predecessor ? is based on a lie, in which both an indigenous civil war and a nationalist insurgency rage unendingly against us. Another junior Democratic senator from New York seems likely to win her party?s nomination for the presidency in 2008, exactly four decades after RFK almost did in 1968.
Another embattled Texan president with falling poll numbers once more fears surging Chinese military power, but now with grandiose global designs for an all-ocean naval presence. There is yet another crisis brewing with North Korea as in 1968.
While there has not yet been a Tet-like counterattack in Iraq, President George W. Bush prepares for a third Vietnam-like war ? with a possible nuclear-armed Iran ? just as Nixon widened the primary Vietnam War in 1970 by invading its neighbor, Red Cambodia. That split the United States politically, but didn?t end either war.
China?s projected naval expansion depends on Iranian oil. The president means to deny China that. A U.S. ally ? Japan ? is on one side of China, while a new “strategic partner,” India, is on another, as is Pakistan. Does the president seek containment of China ? or war?
Over the past year, a dozen new books and newsmagazine cover stories have been discussing “the coming war with China.” Worse, Ted Kennedy?s new book endorses the concept of preventive war as it applied to Israel in 1967, but is mute on China altogether. Has the basic decision already been made by the U.S. “defense” establishment in Washington regarding the necessity of a preventive war with China? We don?t know.
Despite the projected troop pull-outs for 2007, are they designed merely to win the coming Congressional elections for the Republicans? Afterward, will we continue installing a permanent military presence in the Mideast, as we have had in South Korea since 1945, and were building in Vietnam until we left in 1973?
After we “win” (?) a possible war with China, will we set our sights on wars with a unified Africa, or Latin American Confederation within two decades? History is clear: we have been on an unending imperial path militarily and economically since the Spanish-American War of 1898.
Towson freelancer Blaine Taylor, author of six books, is a former Capitol Hill congressional press secretary, and a veteran of the U.S. Army 199th Light Infantry Brigade in South Vietnam during 1966-67, where he was awarded the Combat Infantryman?s Badge for being under enemy fire. He can be reached at [email protected].
