James Pfister: Kissinger’s 1969 Vietnam article and realpolitik

I first became aware of Henry A. Kissinger as a young undergraduate student in the early 1960’s. His books “Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy” (1957) and “The Necessity for Choice” (1961), while a Harvard political science professor only in his 30s, greatly influenced American foreign policy and our ability to use military power in the world. The key concept was “credibility” in the use of force, which underpinned the strategy of containment. Over the years I have collected his books; I am a fan, not a critic, but the tension between the realist approach and law has always been unnerving.

Part I of Kissinger’s article on Vietnam, “The Vietnam Negotiations,” which came out in Foreign Affairs, the key foreign policy journal, on Jan. 1, 1969, as he became National Security Adviser under the newly-elected Richard Nixon, adjusted our understanding of the Vietnam War, and laid a foundation for an honorable American settlement. The quotations below are from that article, unless otherwise indicated. The Nixon-Kissinger foreign policy team was perhaps the best we have ever had, focusing on the realism school of power, credibility, and political dynamics instead of the promotion of morality, democracy, and human rights.

In South Vietnam, the Tet offensive of 1968 by the Viet Cong insurgents, although a U.S. military victory, “overthrew the assumptions of American strategy.” Kissinger believed the problem was conceptual: control of territory or attrition of the enemy, the military approach, were not a good measure of success. Infliction of losses upon the enemy would not lead to victory where the enemy was prepared to suffer what we would consider to be “unacceptable” casualties and which had a long-time perspective. Territory was less important than control of the population.

Regarding control of the population, the Viet Cong was using what we would call terrorism: “their tactic is to use terror and intimidation to discourage cooperation with constituted authority.” While U.S. forces focused on territory where only four percent of the population was, it was not protecting the population. The U.S. experienced “what came to be the characteristic feature of the Vietnamese war: military successes that could not be translated into permanent political advantage.” Few areas were secure from terrorism: “the pervasive experience of the Vietnamese villager was the ubiquitousness of both sides. Saigon controlled much of the country in the daytime; the Viet Cong dominated a large part of the same population at night.” This dual control prevented the population from supporting the government and its authority.

Ultimately, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong sought our “psychological exhaustion.” Fighting on their own territory, it was only a matter of time before we would leave. Kissinger’s famous insight was that regarding guerrilla war, “the guerrilla (Viet Cong) wins if he does not lose; the conventional army (U.S.) loses if it does not win. The North Vietnamese used their main forces the way a bullfighter uses his cape — to keep us lunging into areas of marginal political importance.”

The dual control problem was critical. “For purposes of negotiations, we would have been better off with 100 percent control over 60 percent of the country … than with 60 percent control of 100 percent of the country.” The Tet offensive showed something that “far transcends military considerations: There are no secure areas for Vietnamese civilians.”

Kissinger’s analysis above preceding negotiations he would undertake shows a realism in the political forces involved. He aimed not for perfection but for the management of the problem. David Ignatius, who knew Kissinger for many years, said regarding another area, the Middle East: “Kissinger thought that ‘peace’ might be a chimera. But a stable balance of power in the region that avoided conflict was achievable — and might be as good as it gets.” (The Washington Post, Nov. 30, 2023).

Criticized for the many lives lost or human rights abused due to his decisions, “Mr. Kissinger dismissed critics of these moves by saying that they did not face the world of bad choices he did.” (David Sanger, The New York Times, Nov. 30, 2023). Not constrained by law: “’The illegal we do immediately,’ he quipped more than once. ‘The unconstitutional takes a little longer’.” (Sanger, Ibid.). The world as it is, is not perfect, but managed. Realism.

— James W. Pfister, J.D. University of Toledo, Ph.D. University of Michigan (political science), retired after 46 years in the Political Science Department at Eastern Michigan University. He lives at Devils Lake and can be reached at jpfister@emich.edu.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: James Pfister: Kissinger’s 1969 Vietnam article and realpolitik