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It probably says a lot about what passes for an education system in this country that I actually had to look Robert McNamara up on Wikipedia before I could figure out why Stuart hates him so much.

There is a good article on him and some of his questionable decisions here.

I'm pretty sure it's the whole Gulf of Tonkin thing that Stuart's really focusing on. They'd have some serious overcrowding issues in that particular Circle if wheeler-dealing and making stuff up when the facts when the facts don't fit your agenda qualified you for it.

Hey, speaking of overcrowding in hell, anyone else given some thought to a crossover with Old Harry's Game?

No, he pretty much focuses on all of the bad decisions that Strange made and the damage he and his whizzkids did to the DoD. It can be argued that Strange's decisions put America and Americans at more risk than otherwise would have been the case and RSM knew that.

I just can't think of the "why"...

But yeah, if it weren't for looking him up, most young people would just know McNamara as that suit guy with the glasses in Black Ops.

Zaune wrote:It probably says a lot about what passes for an education system in this country that I actually had to look Robert McNamara up on Wikipedia before I could figure out why Stuart hates him so much.

Is this serious? You're upset that your education system did not tell you about another's country's defence minister whose only real claim to fame outside of defence circles is his involvement - which was no greater than an enormous number of public figures within the US - in the disaster that was intervention in Vietnam?

Fair point, though you'd think that at some point in the year we had to spend learning about the history of the Cold War -particularly the semester on Vietnam- I'd have at least heard his name mentioned. I'm just feeling painfully aware of how truly dire my formal education in history is, and perhaps inclined to give the curriculum even less credit than it deserves.

Good scene for Lords of War in there as well, actually; a platoon of typical British squaddies help extract some famous historical personality from the Hellpit, their officer finds out they've never heard of him and says something very unflattering about comprehensives. One of those little touches that any British reader would instantly identify with.

...A semester spent on Vietnam, and they never mentioned Robert MacNamara? Like, not even the name?

Please, please, please tell me you're joking. I hold MacNamara in approximately the same regard as Shep does, but I can't imagine trying to understand the Vietnam War, why the U.S. tried to fight it the way it did, and why it failed without talking about MacNamara and his ideas about the "new way" to fight wars. His ideas of gradually escalating pressure, the Strategic Hamlet concept, and using statistics such as body counts to determine effectiveness of ground troops against the Viet Cong were the basis of American strategy up until 1968!

At the risk of sounding rude, what on Earth did you spend a semester studying and not cover MacNamara? Please understand that I am not criticizing or running down you at all- whoever ran that class is another matter entirely.
I know this is drifting off-topic for the thread, so feel free to respond via PM if you like.

Personal "favorite" MacNamara story: supposedly, during Rolling Thunder one of his analysts came aboard a USN carrier and gave a presentation to the ship's captain and the admiral commanding the battle group. The subject was a cost-benefits analysis, which concluded that risking a helicopter, three trained aircrew, and a number of jets on Rescue CAP could not be justified by the chance of rescuing one downed aviator- over time, it was cheaper to just let downed pilots die or be captured and train new ones.

The admiral smiled, and said something diplomatic. The captain, after he regained his powers of speech and calmed down, ordered the bright young man to pack his bags and be off his ship in half an hour.

The man who told me the story ended with: If you have to ask why the captain did that, you'll never understand the answer.

The Strategic Hamlet concept was based on British experience from Malaya and was suggested by (Sir) Robert Thompson. It worked very well in Malaya, but doesn't seem to have been properly implemented by the US in South Vietnam, which may be partly down to the government of the RVN.

Fair point- I knew about the program's antecedents but thought its implementation in SVN was MacNamara's idea. I stand by the rest of my comments, though.

They were trying to cram the Cold War, from VE day to the Berlin Wall going down, into one year. Or half a year in effect, because we were doing a separate module on something else in parallel. They barely even managed to list which Presidents were involved.
And, of course, we're going by my extremely spotty memory of what I was learning in class a decade ago here. I'm not even confident it was a full semester; I think it got lumped together with the Cuban Missile crisis that term.

But to give you some perspective, the history curriculum dealt with the Second World War in five years out of the eight I was in secondary school, yet everything I know about Frederick the Great I learned from a BBC4 documentary last night.

Ahhhh, OK. I was picturing an entire semester spent on Vietnam and somehow avoiding MacNamara. This made my brain melt. A lot.

Military history's a hobby of mine, so if you're interested PM me and I can share my reading list.

ChaserGrey wrote:Fair point- I knew about the program's antecedents but thought its implementation in SVN was MacNamara's idea. I stand by the rest of my comments, though.

It was a good idea, so it couldn't have been his.
It should have worked, but the SVN didn't really implement it properly. I think it could have been made to work if the US had supervised it better and not bombed villages, as Thompson told them not to. Bringing in US Civil Affairs troops would have helped a great deal, IMVHO.

ChaserGrey wrote:Military history's a hobby of mine, so if you're interested PM me and I can share my reading list.

I appreciate the offer, but there are so many gaps in my knowledge I don't even know where to start.

For Vietnam I'd recommend Mark Woodruff's Unheralded Victory.

JN1 wrote:For Vietnam I'd recommend Mark Woodruff's Unheralded Victory.

Oh, God no. Unheralded Victory is awful, awful stuff - Woodruff's thesis is simple in the extreme, he gets a lot of stuff wrong or only half-right and he misses the wood for the trees in fairly spectacular fashion. If you want to read from the revisionist school, look at Sorely or Moyar.

JN1 wrote:

ChaserGrey wrote:Fair point- I knew about the program's antecedents but thought its implementation in SVN was MacNamara's idea. I stand by the rest of my comments, though.

It was a good idea, so it couldn't have been his. It should have worked, but the SVN didn't really implement it properly. I think it could have been made to work if the US had supervised it better and not bombed villages, as Thompson told them not to. Bringing in US Civil Affairs troops would have helped a great deal, IMVHO.

The problem was that there was a major cultural difference between South Vietnam and Malaya that Robert Thompson simply missed completely. In Malaya, the communist insurgency was almost entirely centered in the Chinese population; the racial divide between the insurgency and non-insurgency was very marked. Also, the Chinese themselves were mostly squatters on land that they had moved into simply because nobody else laid claim to it and they moved on when somebody did claim it. As a result, the the Chinese population, one piece of land was very much like another and they didn't have much attachment to any of it. So, when they were taken off their existing land and moved somewhere else, the general attitude was 'no big deal'. the fact that they were moved into well-built villages with solid huts rather than shanties and local services were plusses that made them feel well-disposed to the move. Once they were in, the fact that the insurgents were almost entirely Chinese, not Malays made isolating the new village from the insurgents easy. Don't let any Chinese in.

Culturally, South Vietnam was an entirely different situation. There was no easy-to-recognize divide between the insurgents and the population. Also, the villagers were land owners; the village had been in place for centuries and the inhabitants were deeply attached to it and to the land that surrounded it. They'd grown up there, their families were buried there, the place represented their whole identity on a very deep level. So, moving them out was 'a very big deal'. It didn't matter how nice the new village was, it wasn't their village. They wanted their own village back, they hated the new one, they hated the people who had forced them to move. There was no easy way of stopping the insurgents getting in and out of said villages so infiltrators got in and capitalized on the hatred people felt for the move. Very quickly, the 'strategic hamlets' became Vietcong base areas. It was inevitable that would be so because of the cultural difference between Malaya and South Vietnam. Any 'strategic hamlet' program, no matter how well-run, would have failed in South Vietnam.

There is a very important lesson here. In counter-insurgency, the people are the battlefield. In fighting a counter-insurgency campaign one has to know and understand the people just as thoroughly as one knows and understands the ground in a conventional campaign. Robert Thompson was an arrogant pompous ass; he believed that he alone had the great message of how to win insurgencies and nobody else had a clue. So he went around the world telling everybody how well he had done in Malaya and how they should do what he did regardless of local circumstances. Unfortunately, in South Vietnam, people actually listened to him.

Something I found recently:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andras#Marquis_Andras

Andras[4] is a Great Marquis (a Prince to other authors) of Hell, having under his command thirty legions of demons. He sows discord among people.

According to the Goetia, Andras was a Grand Marquis of Hell, appearing with a winged angel's body and the head of an owl or raven, riding upon a strong black wolf and wielding a sharp and bright sword. He was also responsible for sowing discord, and commanded 30 infernal legions. He is the 63rd of the 72 spirits of Solomon.

Andras was considered to be a highly dangerous demon, who could kill the conjuring magician and his assistants if precautions were not taken. A misstep outside the magical protective circle could mean instant death for the conjurer(s), and Andras was always trying to lure them out.

The Dutch demonologist Johannes Wier, in his Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, says of Andras:

"Andras is a great marquesse, and is seene in an angels shape with a head like a blacke night raven, riding upon a blacke and a verie strong woolfe, flourishing with a sharpe sword in his hand, he can kill the maister, the servant, and all assistants, he is author of discords, and ruleth thirtie legions."

Another demonologist, Collin de Plancy, also mentions Andras in his writings:

"Grand Marquis of Hell. He appears to have the body of an angel and the head of a wood owl, and to be riding a black wolf and carrying in his hand a pointed saber. He teaches those whom he favors to kill their enemies, masters and servants. He stirs up trouble and dissension. He commands thirty legions."

Stuart, please don't kill me!

Stuart wrote:*stuff about COIN*

Huh. Funny thing about that. My final on International Security required knowledge of Killcullen and Wilson to properly answer. Seems like we always learn stuff the hard way no? People are the center of gravity, fail to realize that and shit goes to pieces.

Stuart wrote:*stuff about COIN*

Why do I see this being a Chekhov's Gun (oh joy TV Tropes) about some of the problems in Hell by Lords of War?

Jusu wrote:Huh. Funny thing about that. My final on International Security required knowledge of Killcullen and Wilson to properly answer. Seems like we always learn stuff the hard way no? People are the center of gravity, fail to realize that and shit goes to pieces.

"Technological solutions: because when they're wrong we can always blame a software bug and they're cheaper than actual trained personnel!" (This is what I've heard about American airport security compared to "the Israeli method," but it colors my impression of US tactics in Iraq/Afghanistan, even when the overall commanders were trying to push people-centric strategy.)

P.S. Whenever I see milblog commenters hating on COIN and hearts-and-minds... let's just say hopefully none of them are policy-influencers.

Stuart wrote:

JN1 wrote:

ChaserGrey wrote:Fair point- I knew about the program's antecedents but thought its implementation in SVN was MacNamara's idea. I stand by the rest of my comments, though.

It was a good idea, so it couldn't have been his. It should have worked, but the SVN didn't really implement it properly. I think it could have been made to work if the US had supervised it better and not bombed villages, as Thompson told them not to. Bringing in US Civil Affairs troops would have helped a great deal, IMVHO.

The problem was that there was a major cultural difference between South Vietnam and Malaya that Robert Thompson simply missed completely. In Malaya, the communist insurgency was almost entirely centered in the Chinese population; the racial divide between the insurgency and non-insurgency was very marked. Also, the Chinese themselves were mostly squatters on land that they had moved into simply because nobody else laid claim to it and they moved on when somebody did claim it. As a result, the the Chinese population, one piece of land was very much like another and they didn't have much attachment to any of it. So, when they were taken off their existing land and moved somewhere else, the general attitude was 'no big deal'. the fact that they were moved into well-built villages with solid huts rather than shanties and local services were plusses that made them feel well-disposed to the move. Once they were in, the fact that the insurgents were almost entirely Chinese, not Malays made isolating the new village from the insurgents easy. Don't let any Chinese in.

Culturally, South Vietnam was an entirely different situation. There was no easy-to-recognize divide between the insurgents and the population. Also, the villagers were land owners; the village had been in place for centuries and the inhabitants were deeply attached to it and to the land that surrounded it. They'd grown up there, their families were buried there, the place represented their whole identity on a very deep level. So, moving them out was 'a very big deal'. It didn't matter how nice the new village was, it wasn't their village. They wanted their own village back, they hated the new one, they hated the people who had forced them to move. There was no easy way of stopping the insurgents getting in and out of said villages so infiltrators got in and capitalized on the hatred people felt for the move. Very quickly, the 'strategic hamlets' became Vietcong base areas. It was inevitable that would be so because of the cultural difference between Malaya and South Vietnam. Any 'strategic hamlet' program, no matter how well-run, would have failed in South Vietnam.

There is a very important lesson here. In counter-insurgency, the people are the battlefield. In fighting a counter-insurgency campaign one has to know and understand the people just as thoroughly as one knows and understands the ground in a conventional campaign. Robert Thompson was an arrogant pompous ass; he believed that he alone had the great message of how to win insurgencies and nobody else had a clue. So he went around the world telling everybody how well he had done in Malaya and how they should do what he did regardless of local circumstances. Unfortunately, in South Vietnam, people actually listened to him.

Robert Thompson may have been arrogant but his suggestions that the USA shouldn't bomb villages was ignored and his advice that The war will be won by brains and on foot was sound, that unlike Malaya the conflict at Vietnam was backed by China and the USSR so a different approach was needed. There were other factors at fault but it is a bit simplistic to point a finger out at Robert Thompson and is overlooking how the sudden changes of approach to vietnam from Kennedy to Lyndon B. Johnson played a key role to where the conflict was escalated to the point that the 'counter insurgency' could not be won.

Korgeta wrote:There were other factors at fault but it is a bit simplistic to point a finger out at Robert Thompson and is overlooking how the sudden changes of approach to vietnam from Kennedy to Lyndon B. Johnson played a key role to where the conflict was escalated to the point that the 'counter insurgency' could not be won.

Of course. Look, saying "this person made a bad mistake" is NOT the same as saying "all these other people did not make bad or worse mistakes". Thompson's "advice" in Vietnam was ill-advised and based on a partial appreciation of the situation fuelled by his own precoinceptions and colored by his ego. Nevertheless, they were only a part of the witches brew that led to the disaster in Vietnam. Robert McNamara and his clique bear far greater responsibility than Thompson and the blame does not stop there. However, that greater culpability does not change the fact that in pushing a strategic hamlet program, Thompson was giving bad advice that should have been ignored but wasn't. he was also one of the leading figures behind the anti-Diem coup that permanently destabilized the political infrastructure in South Vietnam.

Robert Thompson may have been arrogant but his suggestions that the USA shouldn't bomb villages was ignored and his advice that The war will be won by brains and on foot was sound, that unlike Malaya the conflict at Vietnam was backed by China and the USSR so a different approach was needed.

"The war will be won by brains and on foot" is about as meaningful as suggesting the sun should rise in the east and that water should be wet. It's a condescendling platitude that tells us more about Thompson than a desirable strategy to win the war. What Thompson ignored was that the strategic, operational and tactical setting of Vietnam was totally different from Malaya so experience from the latter did not transfer to the former. Thompson never understood that and in failing to do so he destroyed his reputation. I attended one of his lectures once towards the end of his career and the eye-rolling from the rest of the audience was palpable.

Did Thompson explain what he meant when he said "The war will be won by brains and on foot"? It's quite vague.

[R_H] wrote:Did Thompson explain what he meant when he said "The war will be won by brains and on foot"? It's quite vague.

What he appears to be saying is that if one wants to win a war one should have a better plan than the enemy and to remember that ground can only be held by putting boots on it. Both of which are so obvious they descend to the level of a condescending platitude. The quote is quite meaningless and a good example of why one shouldn't substitute cut-and-pastes from Wikipedia for actual expertise.

Stuart wrote:

[R_H] wrote:Did Thompson explain what he meant when he said "The war will be won by brains and on foot"? It's quite vague.

What he appears to be saying is that if one wants to win a war one should have a better plan than the enemy and to remember that ground can only be held by putting boots on it. Both of which are so obvious they descend to the level of a condescending platitude. The quote is quite meaningless and a good example of why one shouldn't substitute cut-and-pastes from Wikipedia for actual expertise.

Pretty sure what he's advocating a combined military-social-political program at hamlet level ('brains') and local security for said program in the hamlets through boots on the ground ('on foot'). Given that both of these (admittedly vague) were hit upon by plenty of Americans independently of Thompson and formed the basic core of CORDS pacification efforts right up until the US pull out in 72-73, I'm not sure I'd dismiss the quote as 'quite meaningless' - it just lacks context.