History has a habit of repeating itself, not in identical form but in familiar patterns. The United States learned one of its most painful strategic lessons in Vietnam. Yet, half a century later, Washington appears to be flirting with the same mistake in a very different theatre.

The geography has changed. The actors have changed. The weapons have certainly changed. What has not changed is the underlying miscalculation that military dominance automatically translates into strategic control.

The Vietnam War began with a conviction that seemed perfectly logical to American policymakers at the time. If communism spread through Southeast Asia, it would do so like a line of falling dominoes. Containment, therefore, required intervention.

The United States first sent advisers, then money and equipment, and eventually hundreds of thousands of troops. By 1969, more than 540,000 American soldiers were deployed in Vietnam. On paper, the United States possessed overwhelming superiority. Its air force controlled the skies. Its navy dominated the seas. Its army had unmatched firepower and logistics. Yet, despite winning most conventional engagements, the United States failed to achieve its central objective. The communist government in North Vietnam ultimately prevailed, and the country was reunified under its rule in 1975 after the fall of Saigon.

The explanation for that outcome lies in a misreading that ran through the entire American strategy. Washington treated the conflict primarily as a Cold War contest between communism and capitalism. For the Vietnamese leadership and many of its fighters, the struggle was something else entirely. It was a national war against foreign domination. The willingness to absorb extraordinary losses flowed from that conviction.

Military superiority could not compensate for that political reality. This distinction between battlefield power and strategic........

© Mathrubhumi English